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READING AND THINKING 














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READING AND 
THINKING^A Tex, 

for Classes in English Composition ^ 
Designed, by means of Reading Selections 
chosen for contemporary Interest, each 
followed by Searching Questions on Words 
and Form and Content ^ To stimulate the 
Student’s Interest in Reading and to guide 
him to a better Understanding of what 
he reads and to a greater Skill in Self- 
Expression rfc? This Book has been prepared 
by FRANK H. McCLOSKEY and ROBERT 

n 

B. DOW of Washington Square College, 
New York University And is published 
by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 
in New York. 








. <i,<4 A ^ 


★ 

COPYRIGHT, 1939 

BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC. 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
FIRST EDITION 


MAY 12 1939 ; 

► ' t 

* l 

€ 4 i 


©ClA 1 29490 



INTRODUCTION 


In the American colleges there is general agree¬ 
ment that a required course in English composition 
is desirable. There is no general agreement about 
what the course should be, and “Freshman English,” 
as it is commonly called, comes in for a severe drub¬ 
bing, not only from teachers of English but from 
teachers in general. A variety of theories about it 
have been entertained, all the way from those of 
the earliest teachers, who treated the problem as one 
in aesthetics and artistic self-expression, to those of 
the latest, who are frequently inclined to think that 
the function of Freshman English is to help the 
student adjust himself to this changing world. 
Other theorists have held that the subject matter 
should be primarily an assiduous drill in the mechan¬ 
ics of grammar and punctuation and a training in the 
forms of discourse. Still others have tried to com¬ 
bine composition with a study of the history or the 
types of literature. In recent years most teachers 
have worked out a salvation with a course devoted 
in large part to composition but varied and broad¬ 
ened by assignments that require the student to do 
considerable reading and thinking. The result is a 
course that is concerned chiefly with exposition. 
And rightly so, for a large share of one’s reading and 
writing in college and out is exposition. 

But such a course fails if the student cannot read 
intelligently the material put before him. And both 
the impressions of teachers and the results of statis- 


VI 


INTRODUCTION 


tics indicate that a considerable number of college 
students cannot properly read and digest anything, 
Plato or yesterday’s tabloid newspaper. At the same 
time, the amount of reading expected of students is 
constantly on the increase, especially in history and 
the social sciences. Many boys and girls thus make 
a weary pilgrim’s progress. In behalf of poor read¬ 
ers, studies have been made in recent years to discover 
the physical causes of poor reading and of slow read¬ 
ing. There are today devices for increasing speed, 
and students are being aided whose difficulties are 
found to result chiefly from physical defects. No 
sure “cure” has been found, however, even in the 
considerable number of reading clinics in American 
colleges, for the difficulties of other “unreading” 
students. We can only guess that lack of training, 
lack of background, and lack of intellectual curiosity, 
one or all of them, have some share in the difficulty. 

It is at this point that the present volume enters 
the scene. We think that the English composition 
course is sound and effective which forgets all save 
an attempt to train students to read and think well 
and thus to express themselves well. As a device 
which may help in the reading and thinking process, 
we present this little book. 

The littleness is deliberate. The work is not de¬ 
signed for the whole course. Neither is it a sub¬ 
stitute for any text now used. It is a supplement. 
There are thirty selections. The college semester 
generally is fifteen weeks, the college year thirty. 
Here is material for one hour a week throughout 
the year, or for two hours in one semester, or for 
any fraction that the instructor determines. Each 
selection, with its questions, is intended to require 


INTRODUCTION 


vii 


work which can be comfortably prepared for, and 
discussed in, one class session. The questions are 
listed under two headings: “Words” and “Form and 
Content.” Both sets, we think, can be handled in 
an hour. But either one or the other can be ampli¬ 
fied by the instructor to fill an hour. Or a selection 
can be made from the two if intensive work is de¬ 
sired. In any case, the student will have learned 
something about reading and thinking. 

The questions following each selection will even¬ 
tually suggest to the student that he will get from 
his reading and study exactly as much as he brings 
to them. Vocabulary study, understanding of struc¬ 
ture in composition, recognition of a given writer’s 
methods, recognition of planned effect, ability to ex¬ 
plain allusions and figures of speech, all of these pay 
sure dividends. Vocabulary study, we think, is per¬ 
haps the most important. Indeed, of all the tests 
devised for the English student, the vocabulary test 
seems most closely to forecast what the student’s 
success will be, in all his college courses. A diction¬ 
ary of the type of Webster’s Collegiate or Funk and 
Wagnall’s College Standard will give the student 
adequate information to answer all questions on 
words (except the few otherwise specifically noted), 
and a copy of the dictionary should, of course, be 
always at hand in the classroom as well as in the 
study. A student who has the dictionary habit, who 
refuses to let an unfamiliar word pass him, who 
senses the denotations, the connotations, the similari¬ 
ties of prefix and suffix, is on his way to becoming a 
first-rate reader. The danger of not seeing the for¬ 
est for the trees or of falling prey to “the tyranny 
of words” does not exist unless the instructor creates 


INTRODUCTION 


viii 

it. And the “romance of words” is not just a 
pedant’s substitution. Willingness to search out the 
unfamiliar quotation, or the unrecognized king, or 
the indecisive battle is likewise valuable to the stu¬ 
dent. The questions here will, we hope, teach him 
that. 

Several themes run through the questions—mean¬ 
ings and uses of suffixes and prefixes, etymologies, 
related meanings, slang and colloquial usages, deno¬ 
tation and connotation, and others. The instruc¬ 
tor will choose according to his needs and interests. 
In the questions on form and content we have simi¬ 
larly followed themes, so far as the selections allow. 
Generally, the first questions relate to such matters as 
topic sentence, organization of paragraphs, relations 
of paragraphs, contrast and comparison. Succeed¬ 
ing questions in various ways require the student to 
summarize thought and meaning and to dig into 
less easily comprehended passages. Ingenuity is the 
effect. Other questions call attention to allusions, to 
similarities of idea in the given selection and in other 
selections, to matters for discussion. Occasionally 
we have suggested appropriate exercises which may 
serve as the basis for written work. 

The selections for reading here presented are the 
result of some years of trial and error in the class¬ 
room and of our own reading. They are for the 
most part forms of exposition. Narration other 
than the autobiographical or historical was pre¬ 
cluded by considerations of length and the fact that 
students are more likely to make their own way in 
narrative, particularly fiction, than they are in writ¬ 
ings given largely to ideas. And, as we have sug¬ 
gested above, exposition engrosses a large share of 


INTRODUCTION ix 

the student’s time. Moreover, our choices have 
been controlled by content rather than by forms of 
discourse although various forms are illustrated. 
There is the desirable gradation from less difficult to 
more difficult content and form. Repeatedly the 
questions call attention to methods and devices com¬ 
monly employed by the writer. Thus the student 
should have, when he has finished the book, an ac¬ 
cumulation of experience in reading and writing. 
There is similar repetition in the questions on vocabu¬ 
lary. But chiefly there is variety of topic and variety 
of ways in which a topic may be developed. The 
student will range from the origin of language 
through the pleasures of eating celery and the ration¬ 
ale of the simple life to the meaning of the stars. 
He will contrast Dana and Hemingway on the sig¬ 
nificance of Death. He will note what the future of 
science means to Haldane or to Zinsser or Carrel. 
He will taste philosophy in Santayana and again in 
Royce. The selections are to some extent grouped 
on the basis of common idea. Thus the first three 
selections concern language usage, and the last four, 
problems in philosophy; others present literary prob¬ 
lems, the aspects of nature, the problems and signifi¬ 
cance of science. For forms there are narratives, 
highly personal expositions, and formal expositions. 

There is no selection, we think, which the student 
will not regard as modern or in the idiom with which 
he can feel at ease. Irving is the only writer here 
who did not live and write in terms of the nineteenth 
and twentieth centuries. In other words, we have 
chosen only what may be called modern prose from 
writers who are of our time in flesh or spirit. 
What may be called “standard” prose predominates, 


INTRODUCTION 


but in Hemingway there is a suggestion of recent ex¬ 
perimental forms of the sentence. In Broun and 
Pegler appears the currently popular and effective 
journalistic style—a contrast to the journalism of 
Macaulay. And it is salutary to observe the style 
of Huxley or Osier or Clendenning, none of whom is 
primarily a professional writer. 

A number of writers here represented either have 
not before appeared in a book of readings or have 
not done so recently. But we do not pretend either 
to discovery or revival. Likewise, a majority of the 
writers are American. The choice is deliberate but 
not, we trust, chauvinistic. It occurred to us that a 
certain condescension in textbook makers had led 
them to overlook many splendid examples of prose 
written in this country. And we feel that, increas¬ 
ingly, students in American colleges feel most at ease 
with prose when it is infused with the American 
idiom and tempo. 

One final word. Obviously, we are following in 
the path of J. C. Dent and his Thought in English 
Prose. We wish to express our admiration for that 
excellent book. 


New York 
January, 1939 


Frank H. McCloskey 
Robert B. Dow 


TO THE STUDENT 


If you have read the preceding “Introduction/ 7 
you no doubt have the unhappy feeling of being some¬ 
how a guinea pig in a laboratory. You may well 
wonder whether your teachers know what they are 
about and whether it occurs to them that students are 
human beings, and not grist for the mill. You will 
not be flattered by the statement that many students 
should—yes, must improve their skill in reading if 
they are to take advantage of the opportunities for 
self-development offered by the college curriculum. 
But perhaps you can grant that the remark is based 
on observations made over a period of years, and of 
a large number of students like yourselves. It 
should then occur to you that students themselves are 
responsible for the conclusions which have been 
reached. If you can convince yourself that you 
should read with greater facility and better under¬ 
standing and appreciation, that self-improvement in¬ 
evitably follows effort, and that your instructor’s 
greater experience is a guide and aid ready at your 
hand, you will have broken down the wall that tradi¬ 
tion has built up between the student’s seat and the 
instructor’s desk and so removed a serious impedi¬ 
ment to your own education. 

This book, if properly used, will help you improve 
your reading, though how it will help may not, at 
first glance, be apparent to you. You may feel that 
here is just another example of what is only too 
familiar—“picking to pieces” something in print. 


XI 


TO THE STUDENT 


xii 

You may feel that writers ought to make themselves 
so clear that he who runs may read. Probably they 
should. It may be your idea that writers do not con¬ 
sciously choose words or form sentences and para¬ 
graphs in the way in which your instructor and this 
book say they do. Undoubtedly some do not. But 
there is an old adage, “Hard writing makes easy 
reading.” If your author is understandable, it is 
because he has sweated over his composition, the 
choice of his words, the form of his sentences and 
paragraphs, and the organization of his ideas. 
Mere good sportsmanship challenges you to compre¬ 
hend and appreciate his efforts. You may rebel and 
say, in effect, that no one could or would be interested 
in such subject matter as students are required to 
read. If you sincerely feel that the subject matters 
offered you lack interest, are “dry” and “boring,” 
then you should not be in college. No subject is un¬ 
interesting if you know enough about it. And it is 
true that a genuine education embraces a knowledge 
of a variety of matters. Many of them are not en¬ 
tertaining, and for some of them you will have no 
further use. No one has ever supposed that an 
education is a continuously amusing show or a device 
to put money in the purse. Education trains the 
mind in a variety of ways and makes a better person 
out of you. 

As for this book, and the method it represents, 
we hope that it will aid you in all your college courses, 
not English composition alone. And we think that 
you will come, through it, to enjoy your reading. 


CONTENTS 


Introduction 
To the Student 


i. 


2 . 


/ 3 - 


4 - 


A 

6 . 

7 - 

8 . 


9 * 


V io. 

/n. 


From James Bradstreet Greenough and 
George Lyman Kittredge: Words and 
Their Ways in English Speech 
From Henry Louis Mencken: The Ameri¬ 
can Language . 

From Oliver Wendell Holmes : The Auto¬ 
crat of the Breakfast Table 
From Sir William Osier: The Student 

Life . 

From Max Eastman: The Enjoyment of 

Poetry . 

From Hubert Howe Bancroft: The His¬ 
tory of Mexico . 

From Thomas Babington, Lord Macau¬ 
lay : The History of England . 

From Richard Henry Dana: Two Years 

before the Mast . 

From Nathaniel Hawthorne: Mosses 

from an Old Manse . 

From Ernest Hemingway: Death in the 

Afternoon . 

From John Burroughs: Wake-Robin 


xiii 


PAGE 

V 

xi 

i 

9 

17 

23 

30 

36 

42 

50 

56 

67 

76 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

12. From Francis Parkman: The Conspiracy 

of Pontiac .82 

13. From Robert Louis Stevenson: The Sil¬ 

verado Squatters .88 

14. From George Borrow: The Bible in Spain 96 

15. From A. A. Milne : Not That It Matters 103 

16. From Heywood Broun: It Seems to Me 109 

17. From Westbrook Pegler: } T Aint Right 115 

18. From Rudyard Kipling: The Drums of 

the Fore and Aft .122 

19. From Washington Irving '.Knickerbocker’s 

History of New York .132 

20. From Thomas Henry Huxley: On Our 

Knowledge of the Causes of the Phe¬ 
nomena of Organic Nature 139 

21. From J. B. S. Haldane: Possible Worlds 148 

22. From Logan Clendening: The Human 

Body .157 

'/ 23. From Hans Zinsser: Rats, Lice, and His¬ 
tory .165 

^4. From Alexis Carrel: Man the Unknown 176 

25. From Edith Wharton: A Backward 

Glance .183 

26. From Walter Pater : Preface to The Ren¬ 

aissance .192 

27. From Henry David Thoreau: Walden . 198 

28. From George Santayana: Little Essays 207 

29. From John Stuart Mill: On Liberty 214 

30. From Josiah Royce: The Spirit of Mod¬ 

ern Philosophy .222 






READING AND THINKING 



t 


GREENOUGH AND KITTREDGE 


James Bradstreet Greenough (1833-1901) was born in 
Portland, Maine, and was educated at Harvard. After some 
years as a lawyer and court official he returned to Harvard 
to teach Latin. A natural linguist, he studied deeply in 
comparative philology and was the first to teach it at Har¬ 
vard. He is familiar to students as co-author of a Latin 
grammar and editor of a long series of texts. 

George Lyman Kittredge (i860- ) was born in Bos¬ 

ton and was educated at Harvard. He began teaching Eng¬ 
lish at Harvard in 1888 and continued there until 1936, a 
famous teacher, wit, and personality. He is best known as 
an authority on Shakespeare, but has published much in other 
subjects. Toward the end of Greenough’s career the two 
men collaborated in what has long been a standard text, 
Words and Their Ways in English Speech —the first chap¬ 
ter of which is printed here.* 


I. The expression of our thoughts by means of 
language is a practice of so long standing that we 
accept it almost as an instinctive performance. No¬ 
body can remember when or how he learned to talk. 
Indeed, it is seldom possible to recall even those 5 
moments in later life when, after the art of speech 
had been acquired, we became familiar with par¬ 
ticular words which, as we know well enough, must 

♦Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers. 

1 




2 


READING AND THINKING 


have been from time to time added to our personal 
10 vocabulary. We can, to be sure, remember when 
we were first introduced to the technical language of 
some particular science, as mathematics or medicine 
or political economy. We may even recollect the 
person from whom we first heard a new phrase which 
15 has since become a part of our habitual stock. And 
all of us are aware of specific additions to our vo¬ 
cabulary from that ephemeral element in everyday 
speech known as “slang,” which is constantly pro¬ 
viding us with strange terms that force themselves 
20 upon our attention because everybody employs them, 
and that rapidly die out only to be replaced by 
equally grotesque novelties. But the sum-total of 
our retrospect accounts for only the minutest frac¬ 
tion of our whole outfit of words and phrases. And 
25 were it not for our observation of infants, who can¬ 
not speak at all, and of young children, who are 
painfully learning the art of speech, we should in¬ 
evitably believe that the expression of our thoughts 
in language was spontaneous action, quite independ- 
30 ent of our own will and exertions, like breathing or 
the circulation of the blood. 

2. Yet no phenomenon is more amazing than that 
of speech. Nor can any process be imagined more 
complicated than that by which the vocabulary of a 

35 highly developed language, like English, comes into 
existence and fits itself to the multifarious needs of 
civilized man in the utterance of thought and emo¬ 
tion. If to the process of oral speech we add the 
corollary processes of reading and writing, we have 
40 a series of phenomena which no thinking man can 
contemplate without a kind of awe. 

3. Language is the expression of thought by means 


GREENOUGH AND KITTREDGE 3 

of words; that is, by means of signs of a peculiar 
sort made with the vocal organs. Since the tongue 
is one of the most important of these organs, and 45 
since we are habitually conscious of using it in articu¬ 
lation, we often call our language our “tongue,**— 
and the word language itself is derived, through the 
French, from lingua } the Latin name for that organ. 

4. The origin of language is an unsolved prob-so 
lem. It was once supposed that man was created a 
talking animal; that is to say, that he could speak 
immediately on his creation, through a special fac¬ 
ulty inherent in his very nature. Some scholars 
maintained that our first parents were instructed in 55 
the rudiments of speech by God himself, or that 
language in esse was a gift bestowed by the deity 
immediately after Adam was created. Along with 
these opinions went, in former times, the opinion 
that Hebrew, the language of the Jewish Scriptures, 60 
was the primitive tongue of mankind. None of 
these views is now in favor, either with theologians 
or with philologists. However we conceive the first 
man to have come into existence, we are forced to 
believe that language as we know it was a human 65 
invention. Not language itself, but the inherent 
power to frame and develop a language was the 
birthright of man. This result, it will be seen, is 
purely negative. It defines what the origin of lan¬ 
guage was not, but it throws no light on the question 70 
what it was, and no satisfactory answer to the ques¬ 
tion has ever been proposed. Some scholars believe 
that human speech originated in man’s attempt to 
imitate the sounds of nature, as if a child should call 
a dog “bow-wow,” or a cow “moo.” No doubt 75 
such imitation accounts for a certain number of 


4 


READING AND THINKING 


words in our vocabulary, but there are great diffi¬ 
culties in carrying out the theory to its ultimate re¬ 
sults. All that can be said is that the “bow-wow 
so theory,” as it is jocosely called, has never been driven 
from the field. Another view, which may be traced 
without any great difficulty to Herder’s attempt to 
explain “the speech of animals,” has found a warm 
defender in Max Muller. According to this view, 
85 which has a specious appearance of philosophical 
profundity, the utterances of primitive man were 
the spontaneous result, by reflex action, of impres¬ 
sions produced upon him by various external phe¬ 
nomena. Though the “ding-dong theory,” as it is 
90 derisively called, is now discredited, and, in its en¬ 
tirety, is hardly susceptible of intelligible statement, 
it may, after all, contain a grain of truth. 

5. Another partly discredited theory seeks the 
origin of language in such involuntary exclamations 

95 as oh! bah! pshaw! and the like. Hence it is often 
called the “pooh-pooh theory.” 

6 . The upshot of the whole discussion is a con¬ 
fession of ignorance. The impossibility of arriving 
at the truth is more and more evident, as the stupen- 

100 dous length of man’s residence upon this planet be¬ 
fore the dawn of history is more and more clearly 
recognized. We do not know, and we can never 
know, how language began. Yet we can study some 
of the processes of its development in form and in 
105 meaning for a period extending over several thou¬ 
sand years, and we find these processes essentially 
identical with those that we can imperfectly observe 
within the limits of our own lifetime. 

7. Well-chosen words, arranged in a felicitous 
110 order, have a peculiar cadence which pleases the ear, 


GREENOUGH AND KITTREDGE 5 

irrespective of any meaning which they convey to the 
mind. If the cadence is sufficiently measured, the 
result is verse or, to use the popular term, poetry. 
Now it is a familiar fact of literary history that good 
poetry always precedes good prose in the order of 
development. Indeed, the art of writing unmetrical 
language in a forcible and pleasing style is one of the 
latest achievements of any literature. 

8. In the eighteenth century, when much attention 
was given to literary and linguistic origins, but when 
these were investigated on a basis rather of senti¬ 
mental prepossession than of scientific reason, and 
when the body of material available for evidence 
was extremely scanty and had not been properly 
sifted, a peculiar theory of the connection between 
language and poetry gained very general favor. It 
was expressed in a taking form by Hamann, whose 
celebrated dictum, “Poetry is the mother tongue of 
man,” was taken up and enforced by Herder in a 
way that gave it a commanding influence on contem¬ 
porary thought,—an influence, indeed, which it has 
not altogether lost, even in the present age, whose 
tendencies are so different from those that prevailed 
a hundred years ago. 

9. Primitive man was conceived by the romantic 
imagination of the eighteenth century as leading an 
ideal existence. Uncorrupted by contact with civili¬ 
zation, he lived near to nature, and all nature spoke 
to him in a voice more immediately intelligible than 
we can now conceive, even in the case of a poet like 
Wordsworth. Thus sympathetically impressed by 
natural phenomena, man gave utterance to the 
thoughts and feelings which they produced within 
him in melodious sounds, which instantly took shape 


115 

120 

125 

130 

135 

140 


6 


READING AND THINKING 


145 as poetry. In short, according to this conception, 
language and song are inseparable, and our poetry 
is nothing but a survival, under more artificial con¬ 
ditions, of the primitive language which mankind 
uttered in the Golden Age. 

150 io. Such theories are now known to be based on a 
false conception of the history of mankind as well as 
of the nature of articulate speech. Yet, like all 
theories that have at any time commanded the assent 
of thinking men, they must embody, in an imperfect 
155 expression, some quantum of truth. Primitive man 
may not have sung like the birds, but there is cer¬ 
tainly a natural rhythm in language to which the 
mind and feelings immediately respond, just as there 
is a natural rhythm in the beating of the heart, the 
160 drawing of the breath, and even in many movements 
of the body which we call “voluntary” and regard as 
arbitrarily controlled by the individual will. Lan¬ 
guage, that is to say, may not be poetry in esse y but 
it is always potential verse. From another point of 
165 view, too, the saying of Hamann may be justified if 
we interpret it with the license that all oracles de¬ 
mand. There is no process of figurative language, 
no device of grammar or rhetoric, no whim even of 
pedantic theorizers on eloquence, which does not find 
170 its parallel over and over again in the unstudied 
processes of our ordinary speech. It is profoundly 
true that “all language is poetry.” 

WORDS 

i. The following words are made up of roots and affixes 
derived from Greek and Latin: “expression” ( 1 . i), “intro¬ 
duced” (1. 11), “retrospect” (1. 23), “multifarious” (1. 36), 


GREENOUGH AND KITTREDGE 7 

“theologians” (1. 62), “philologists” (1. 63), “proposed” 
(1. 72), “philosophical” (1. 85), “sympathetically” (1. 141), 
“eloquence” (1. 169). 

(a) Explain the meaning of the terms root and affix. 
(You will find that there are two kinds of affixes.) 

(b) Point out the root of each word, and list other English 
words having the same roots. 

(c) List the prefixes, explain each, and list other English 
words having the same prefixes. 

(d) List the suffixes, explain each, and list other English 
words having the same suffixes. 

2. Define each word in the first question and explain its 
meaning as it is used in the selection. 

3. Comment on the similarity of “language” (1. 2) and 
“linguistic” (1. 120) ; of “vocabulary” (1. 10) and “vocal” 
(1. 44). 

4. Define “corollary” (1. 39), “felicitous” (1. 109), 
“cadence” (1. no), “prepossession” (1. 122), and “quantum” 
(!• 155). 

5. What is the meaning of “in esse” (1. 57) ? Why is it 
italicized in the text? 

6. What terms have more or less replaced “political econ¬ 
omy” (1. 13 )? 

7. What common word is a synonym for “unmetrical lan¬ 
guage” (11. 116-117)? 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The title of this selection is “The Origin of Language.” 
The selection might be outlined roughly as follows: 

(a) Complexity and difficulty of the subject. 

(b) An ancient theory and three modern but imperfect 
theories. 

(c) Eighteenth-century romantic views of the relationship 
between language and poetry. 


READING AND THINKING 


Indicate the points of division and the transition from each 
topic to the next. 

2. Point out each paragraph that is tied to the one preced¬ 
ing it by obvious connecting, or transitional, words. How is 
transition effected where there are not such obvious words ? 

3. The title of the chapter succeeding this one is ‘‘Lan¬ 
guage Is Poetry.” With that fact in mind, comment upon 
the structure of this selection. 

4. Why is the “pooh-pooh” theory given a separate para¬ 
graph ? 

5. What are the chief points of complexity and difficulty? 
(See the first question.) 

6. Characterize the three modern theories. If each theory 
has been discarded, why is a discussion of them included here ? 

7. Justify the inclusion in the chapter of the third part. 
What has poetry to do with the origin of language ? 

8. Which comes first, poetry or prose ? Can you infer the 
reasons from the authors’ discussion ? 

9. Point out two repetitions of the idea, “The origin of 
language is an unsolved problem” (11. 50-51). Show how 
this repetition serves to unify one part of the discussion. 

10. What, chiefly, has led to the abandoning of the theory 
that “man was created a talking animal” (11. 51-52) ? 

11. What was the “false conception of the history of man¬ 
kind” (1. 151) from which grew the romantic eighteenth- 
century ideas about the relationship of language and poetry? 

12. How is the statement illustrated that all theories con¬ 
tain some truth ( 11 .152-155) ? Suggest other theories to be 
similarly tested. 

13. Explain these phrases: 

(a) “ephemeral element in everyday speech known as 
‘slang’” (H.17-18). 

(b) “specious appearance of philosophical profundity” 
(11. 85-86). 

(c) “the license that all oracles demand” (11. 166-167). 


HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN 


Henry Louis Mencken (1880- ) was born in Balti¬ 

more and was educated at Baltimore Polytechnic. Since 
1899 he has been connected with Baltimore newspapers, 
especially the Sun. He was literary editor (also co-editor 
with George Jean Nathan) of Smart Set , and founder and 
editor, until I933> of The American Mercury. As editor 
of these magazines he profoundly influenced American lit¬ 
erary practice and taste while at the same time he character¬ 
ized Americans as so many Puritan boobs. He has published 
volumes on a considerable range of subjects from Nietzsche to 
current politics. Throughout his life he has had a passion¬ 
ate interest in the development of English in America, the 
result being the most complete and authoritative work on 
the subject, The American Language , from which the fol¬ 
lowing extract comes.* 


I. Toward the end of 1933 W. J. Funk under¬ 
took to supply the newspapers with the names of the 
ten most fecund makers of the American slang then 
current. He nominated T.A. (Tad) Dorgan, the 
cartoonist; Sime Silverman, editor of the theatricals 
weekly, Variety; Gene Buck, the song writer; Damon 
Runyon, the sports writer; Walter Winchell and 
Arthur (Bugs) Baer, newspaper columnists; George 
Ade, Ring Lardner, and Gelett Burgess. He 
should have added Jack Conway and Johnny 10 

^Reprinted by permission of and special arrangement with Alfred 
A. Knopf, Inc., authorized publishers. 




10 READING AND THINKING 

O’Connor of the staff of Variety; James Glea¬ 
son, author of Is Zat So?; Rube Goldberg, the 
cartoonist; Johnny Stanley and Johnny Lyman, 
Broadway figures; Wilson Mizner and Milt Gross, 
is Conway, who died in 1928, is credited with the 
invention of palooka (a third-rater), belly-laugh, 
Arab (for Jew), S.A. (sex appeal), high-hat, push¬ 
over, boloney (for buncombe, later adopted by 
Alfred E. Smith), headache (wife), and the verbs 
20 to scram, to click (meaning to succeed), and to laugh 
that off . Winchell, if he did not actually invent 
whoopee, at least gave it the popularity it enjoyed, 
c. 1930. He is also the father of Chicagorilla, 
Joosh (for Jewish), pash (for passion), and shafts 
25 (for legs), and he has devised a great many nonce 
words and phrases, some of them euphemistic and 
others far from it, e.g., for married: welded, sealed, 
lohengrined, merged, and middleaisled; for divorced: 
Reno-vated; for contemplating divorce: telling it to 
30 a judge, soured, curdled, in husband trouble, this- 
and-that-way, and on the verge; for in love: on the 
merge, on fire, uh-huh, that way, cupiding, Adam- 
and-Eveing, and man-and-womaning it; for expecting 
young: inf anticipating, baby-bound, and storked . I 
35 add a few other characteristic specimens of his art: 
go-ghetto, debutramp, phffft, foofff (a pest), hehe- 
heh (a mocking laugh), Hard-Times Square (Times 
Square), blessed-event (the birth of young), the 
Hardened Artery (Broadway), radiodor (a radio 
40 announcer), moom-pitcher (moving picture), girl- 
mad, Park Rowgue (a newspaper reporter), and in- 
telligentlemen. Most of these, of course, had only 
their brief days, but a few promise to survive. Dor- 
gan, who died in 1929, was the begetter of apple- 


HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN 11 

sauce, tzventy-three, skiddoo, ball-and-chain (for 
wife), cake-eater, dumb Dora f dumbell (for stupid 
person), nobody home, and you said it . He also 
gave the world, “Yes, we have no bananas,” though 
he did not write the song, and he seems to have origi¬ 
nated the cat r s pajamas f which was followed by a 
long series of similar superlatives. The sports writ¬ 
ers, of course, are all assiduous makers of slang, and 
many of their inventions are taken into the general 
vocabulary. Thus, those who specialize in boxing 
have contributed, in recent years, kayo, cauliflower- 
ear, prelim f shadow-boxing } slug-fest f title-holder, 
punch-drunk, brother-act, punk, to side-step, and to go 
the limit; those who cover baseball have made many 
additions to the list of baseball terms given in Chap¬ 
ter V; and those who follow the golf tournaments 
have given currency to birdie, fore, par, bunker, 
divot f fairway, to tee off, stance, and onesome, two¬ 
some, threesome and so on—some of them received 
into the standard speech, but the majority lingering 
in the twilight of slang. 

2. George Philip Krapp attempts to distinguish 
between slang and sound idiom by setting up the doc¬ 
trine that the former is “more expressive than the 
situation demands.” “It is,” he says, “a kind of 
hyperesthesia in the use of language. To laugh in 
your sleeve is idiom because it arises out of a natural 
situation; it is a metaphor derived from the picture 
of one raising his sleeve to his face to hide a smile, a 
metaphor which arose naturally enough in early 
periods when sleeves were long and flowing; but to 
talk through your hat is slang, not only because it is 
new, but also because it is a grotesque exaggeration 
of the truth.” The theory, unluckily, is combated 


45 

50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 


12 


READING AND THINKING 


by many plain facts. To hand it to him, to get away 
so with it, and even to hand him a lemon are certainly 
not metaphors that transcend the practicable and 
probable, and yet are undoubtedly slang. On the 
other hand, there is palpable exaggeration in such 
phrases as “he is not worth the powder it would take 
85 to kill him,” in such adjectives as breakhone (fever), 
and in such compounds as fire-eater, and yet it would 
be absurd to dismiss them as slang. Between block¬ 
head and bonehead there is little to choose, but the 
former is sound English, whereas the latter is Ameri- 
90 can slang. So with many familiar similes, e.g., like 
greased lightning, as scarce as hen f s teeth: they are 
grotesque hyperboles, but hardly slang. 

3. The true distinction, in so far as any distinction 
exists at all, is that indicated by Whitney, Bradley, 
95Sechrist, and McKnight. Slang originates in the 
effort of ingenious individuals to make the language 
more pungent and picturesque—to increase the store 
of terse and striking words, to widen the boundaries 
of metaphor, and to provide a vocabulary for new 
100 shades of difference in meaning. As Dr. Otto Jes- 
persen has pointed out, this is also the aim of poets 
(as, indeed, it is of prose writers), but they are re¬ 
strained by consideration of taste and decorum, and 
also, not infrequently, by historical or logical con- 
105 siderations. The maker of slang is under no such 
limitations: he is free to confect his neologism by 
any process that can be grasped by his customers, and 
out of any materials available, whether native or 
foreign. He may adopt any of the traditional de- 
110vices of metaphor. Making an attribute do duty 
for the whole gives him stiff for corpse, flat-foot for 
policeman, smoke-eater for fireman, skirt for woman, 


HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN 


13 


lunger for consumptive, and yes-man for sycophant. 
Hidden resemblances give him morgue for a news¬ 
paper’s file of clippings, bean for head, and sinker 
for a doughnut. The substitution of far-fetched fig¬ 
ures for literal description gives him glad-rags for 
fine clothing, bonehead for ignoramus, booze-foundry 
for saloon, and cart-wheel for dollar, and the con¬ 
trary resort to a brutal literalness gives him kill-joy, 
low-life, and hand-out. He makes abbreviations 
with a free hand— beaut for beauty, gas for gasoline, 
and so on. He makes bold avail of composition, 
as in attaboy and whatdyecallem, and of onomato¬ 
poeia, as in biff, zowie, honky-tonk, and wow. He 
enriches the ancient counters of speech with pictur¬ 
esque synonyms, as in guy, gink, duck, bird, and bozo 
for fellow. He transfers proper names to common 
usage, as in ostermoor for mattress, and then some¬ 
times gives them remote figurative significances, as 
in ostermoors for whiskers. Above all, he enriches 
the vocabulary of action with many new verbs and 
verb-phrases; e.g., to burp, to neck, to gang, to frame 
up, to hit the pipe, to give him the works, and so on. 
If, by the fortunes that condition language-making, 
his neologism acquires a special and limited meaning, 
not served by any existing locution, it enters into 
sound idiom and is presently wholly legitimatized; 
if, on the contrary, it is adopted by the populace as a 
counter-word and employed with such banal imita¬ 
tiveness that it soon loses any definite significance 
whatever, then it remains slang and is avoided by the 
finical. An example of the former process is 
afforded by tommy-rot. It first appeared as Eng¬ 
lish school-boy slang, but its obvious utility soon 
brought it into good usage. In one of Jerome 


115 

120 

125 

130 

135 

140 

145 


14 


READING AND THINKING 


K. Jerome’s books, Paul Kelver, there is the follow¬ 
ing dialogue: 

“The wonderful songs that nobody ever sings, the wonder- 
150 ful pictures that nobody ever paints, and all the rest of it. 
It’s tommy-rot!” 

“I wish you wouldn’t use slang.” 

“Well, you know what I mean. What is the proper 
word? Give it to me.” 

155 “I suppose you mean cant.” 

“No, I don’t. Cant is something that you don’t believe in 
yourself. It’s tommy-rot; there isn’t any other word.” 

4. Nor were there any other words for hubbub, 
fireworks, foppish, fretful, sportive, dog-weary, to 
lsobump, and to dwindle in Shakespeare’s time; he 
adopted and dignified them because they met genuine 
needs. Nor was there any other satisfactory word 
for graft when it came in, nor for rowdy, nor for 
boom, nor for joy-ride, nor for slacker, nor for trust- 
165 buster. Such words often retain a humorous qual¬ 
ity; they are used satirically and hence appear but 
seldom in wholly serious discourse. But they have 
standing in the language nevertheless, and only a 
prig would hesitate to use them as George Saintsbury 
170 used the best of the bunch and joke-smith. So re¬ 
cently as 1929 the Encyclopaedia Britannica listed 
bootlegger, speakeasy, dry, wet, crook, fake, fizzle, 
hike, hobo, poppycock, racketeer, and O.K. as Ameri¬ 
can slang terms, but today most of them are in per- 
175 fectly good usage. What would one call a racketeer 
if racketeer were actually forbidden ? It would take 
a phrase of four or five words at least, and they 
would certainly not express the idea clearly. 


HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN 


15 


WORDS 

1. The following words describe or explain the way words 
are used; explain each one from that point of view: “euphe¬ 
mistic” (1. 26), “metaphor” (1. 72), “similes” (1. 90), 
“hyperboles” (1. 92), “neologism” (1. 106), “onomatopoeia” 
(1. 124). 

2. It is possible that the following words were once slang 
in some form; on the basis of material in your dictionary, 
attempt an explanation: “grotesque” (1. 77), “picturesque” 
(1. 97)> “sycophant” (1. 113), “ignoramus” (1. 118), “banal” 
(1. 140), “finical” (1. 143). 

3. How would you classify “counter-word” ( 1 . 140) ? 

4. Explain the origin of “nonce” ( 1 . 25). Compare 
“tother.” 

5. What is the meaning of “fecund” ( 1 . 3), “superlatives” 
(1. 51), “assiduous” (1. 52), “hyperesthesia” (1. 70), “tran¬ 
scend” (1. 81), “palpable” (1. 83), “pungent” (1. 97), “terse” 
(1. 98), “decorum” (1. 103), “confect” (1. 106), “avail” 
(1. 123), “locution” (1. 137), “legitimatized” (1. 138), 
“satirically” (1. 166), “discourse” (1. 167), “prig” (1. 169)? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

% 

1. What, in your own words, is Krapp’s distinction be¬ 
tween slang and idiom? What is Mencken’s objection? 

2. “Ingenious individuals” ( 1 . 96). What is their func¬ 
tion in relation to slang? What, then, is the origin of slang? 

3. What, considering question 2, is the relation between 
the first and third paragraphs? 

4. What is the similarity between the creators of slang and 
of poetry? 

5. “The maker of slang is . . . free to confect his neol¬ 

ogism by any process that can be grasped by his customers” 
( 11 . 105-107). The processes are ( a )-, ( b) -, 




16 


READING AND THINKING 


(c)-, ( d) -, ( e )-. Fill in each blank with a 

word or phrase. 

6. Explain the “hidden resemblances” of the terms in lines 
114-116. 

7. Why are the terms in lines 117-119 “far-fetched”? 

8. What is the distinction between a neologism which 
enters into sound idiom and one that remains slang? 

9. What is the effect of “avoided by the finical” ( 11 . 142— 
143 )? 

10. On the basis of the last paragraph, especially the last 
two sentences, make in one sentence a definition of slang. 


SUGGESTED WORK 

1. List the slang terms commonly used at present by your 
family or your friends. How do they stand up under the 
tests proposed in the selection ? 

2. Consult George H. McKnight, Modern English in the 
Making (New York, 1928) and make a list of words bor¬ 
rowed by Shakespeare from the slang of his time. 

3. Out of your own experience make a list of baseball slang. 
Then consult V. Samuels, “Baseball Slang,” in American 
Speech, February, 1927, p. 255. 

4. Make a list of football slang terms. Have any of them 
passed into common speech? ( e.g ., “Monday-morning 
quarterback) 

5. Make a list of college slang. Then consult the dic¬ 
tionary and see if each word is slang. 





OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 


Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809—1894) was thoroughly a 
New Englander and a Bostonian. He was related to many 
of the prominent New England families, he soaked himself 
in the thought and ways of that section, and, except for two 
years of medical study in Paris and Edinburgh, he lived all 
his life in Boston. His formal education was obtained at 
Phillips Andover and Harvard, where he ultimately gained 
the M.D. degree. His career as a physician was long and 
distinguished. In it he found time, nevertheless, to write 
poetry, novels, and essays. His contributions to the early 
issues of The Atlantic Monthly had much to do with that 
magazine’s success. The following selection is from The 
Autocrat of the Breakfast Table , one of his Atlantic series.* 


I. Do you mean to say the pun-question is not 
clearly settled in your minds? Let me lay down the 
law upon the subject. Life and language are alike 
sacred. Homicide and verbicide —that is, violent 
treatment of a word with fatal results to its legiti -5 
mate meaning, which is its life—are alike forbidden. 
Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is 
the same as a man’s laughter, which is the end of the 
other. A pun is prima facie an insult to the person 
you are talking with. It implies utter indifference 10 
to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter 
how serious. I speak of total depravity, and one 

♦This selection from Oliver Wendell Holmes is used by permission 
of, and by arrangement with the publishers, Houghton Mifflin 
Company. 


17 




18 


READING AND THINKING 


says all that is written on the subject is deep raving. 
I have committed my self-respect by talking with 
15 such a person. I should like to commit him, but can¬ 
not, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geologi¬ 
cal convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine 
of Noah’s ark; also, whether the Deluge was not a 
deal huger than any modern inundation. 

20 2 . A pun does not commonly justify a blow in re¬ 

turn. But if a blow were given for such cause, and 
death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the 
facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of 
an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifi- 
25 able homicide. Thus, in a case lately decided before 
Miller, J., Doe presented Roe a subscription paper, 
and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe 
replied by asking, When charity was like a top? It 
was in evidence that Doe preserved a dignified si- 
30 lence. Roe then said, “When it begins to hum.” 
Doe then—and not until then—struck Roe, and his 
head happening to hit a bound volume of the 
Monthly Rag-Bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense 
mortification ensued, with a fatal result. The chief 
35 laid down his notions of the law to his brother jus¬ 
tices, who unanimously replied, “Jest so.” The 
chief rejoined, that no man should jest so without 
being punished for it, and charged for the prisoner, 
who was acauitted, and the pun ordered to be burned 
40 by the sheriff. The bound volume was forfeited as 
a deodand, but not claimed. 

3. People that make puns are like wanton boys 
that put coppers on the railroad tracks. They 
amuse themselves and other children, but their little 
45 trick may upset a freight train of conversation for 
the sake of a battered witticism. 


OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 19 

4. I will thank you, B.F., to bring down two 
books, of which I will mark the places on this slip of 
paper. (While he is gone, I may say that this boy, 
our landlady’s youngest, is called Benjamin Franklin, 
after the celebrated philosopher of that name. A 
highly merited compliment.) 

5. I wished to refer to two eminent authorities. 
Now be so good as to listen. The great moralist 
says: “To trifle with the vocabulary which is the 
vehicle of social intercourse is to tamper with the cur¬ 
rency of human intelligence. He who would violate 
the sanctities of his mother tongue would invade the 
recesses of the paternal till without remorse, and re¬ 
peat the banquet of Saturn without an indigestion.” 

6. And, once more, listen to the historian. “The 
Puritans hated puns. The Bishops were notoriously 
addicted to them. The Lords Temporal carried 
them to the verge of license. Majesty itself must 
have its Royal quibble. ‘Ye be burly, my Lord of 
Burleigh,’ said Queen Elizabeth, ‘but ye shall make 
less stir in our realm than my Lord of Leicester.’ 
The gravest wisdom and the highest breeding lent 
their sanction to the practice. Lord Bacon play¬ 
fully declared himself a descendant of ’Og, the King 
of Bashan. Sir Philip Sidney, with his last breath, 
reproached the soldier who brought him water, for 
wasting a casque full upon a dying man. A courtier, 
who saw Othello performed at the Globe Theatre, 
remarked that the blackamoor was a brute, and not 
a man. ‘Thou hast reason,’ replied a great Lord, 
‘according to Plato his saying; for this be a two- 
legged animal with feathers.’ The fatal habit be¬ 
came universal. The language was corrupted. 
The infection spread to the national conscience. Po- 


50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 

•80 


20 


READING AND THINKING 


litical double-dealings naturally grew out of verbal 
double meanings. The teeth of the new dragon 
were sown by the Cadmus who introduced the alpha¬ 
bet of equivocation. What was levity in the time of 
85 the Tudors grew to regicide and revolution in the 
age of the Stuarts.’’ 

7. Who was that boarder that just whispered 
something about the Macaulay-flowers of literature? 
—There was a dead silence.—I said calmly, I shall 
90 henceforth consider any interruption by a pun as a 
hint to change my boarding-house. Do not plead 
my example. If I have used any such, it has been 
only as a Spartan father would show up a drunken 
helot. We have done with them. 


WORDS 

1. What is the meaning here of “homicide” ( 1 . 4), “legiti¬ 
mate” (1. 5), “manslaughter” (1. 7), “sublime” (1. 11), 
“committed” (1. 14), “inundation” (1. 19), “aggravated” 
(1. 24), “subscription” (1. 26), “mortification” (1. 34), “re¬ 
joined” (1. 37), “deodand” (1. 41), “wanton” (1. 42), 
“moralist” (1. 54), “recesses” (1. 59 ), “till” (1. 59), “no¬ 
toriously” (1. 62), “quibble” (1. 65), “gravest” (1. 68), 
“casque” (1. 73), “equivocation” (1. 84), “levity” (1. 84), 
“regicide” (1. 85), “helot” (1. 94). 

2. Holmes uses “manslaughter” and “homicide” in the first 
paragraph as synonyms; but compare “justifiable homicide” 
( 11 . 24-25). Are the terms so used by lawyers? 

3. “Total depravity” ( 1 . 12) and “geological convulsions” 
(11. 16-17) are technical terms in theology and geology. 
Explain each. 

4. Explain as well as you can the origin of the following 
idiomatic phrases: “lay down the law” (11. 2-3) ; “return a 


OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 


21 


verdict” (1. 24) ; “was in evidence” (1. 29) ; “charged for 
the prisoner” (1. 38). 

5. What is the basis of the figurative use of “vehicle” 
(1. 56) and “currency” (1. 56) in relation to social inter¬ 
course and human intelligence? 

6. What is the “national conscience” ( 1 . 80) ? 

7. What are “Lords Temporal” ( 1 . 63)? What kind of 
lords are bishops? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The whole selection is part of remarks supposed to be 
made by a man sitting at the breakfast table in his boarding¬ 
house. 

(a) Point out words or phrases which reflect this situation. 

(b) Explain, from this point of view, the parenthesis in 
the fourth paragraph. 

2. Pun is defined as “a play on words of the same sound 
but different meanings, or on different applications of a word.” 
But some puns are for the ear, some for the eye—for example, 
man’s laughter = manslaughter. 

(a) Find at least twelve puns in the selection and classify 
them according to the statement above. 

(b) Consider the literal meaning of “prima facie” ( 1 . 9) to 
see whether it is used punningly. 

(c) “Deodand” ( 1 . 41) involves a joke. Is it a pun? 

(d) Consider “equivocation,” “equivoque,” and “quibble” 
in relation to “pun.” 

3. In the next to the last sentence Holmes defends his own 
puns. 

(a) What is the point of his reference to the Spartan 
father ? 

(b) How serious do you think he is? 


22 


READING AND THINKING 


4. Summarize Holmes’s arguments against puns. 

5. Explain “the banquet of Saturn” ( 1 . 60), “ ’Og, the 
King of Bashan” ( 11 . 70-71), and “teeth . . . sown by . . . 
Cadmus” ( 11 . 82-83). In connection with “ ’Og,” remem¬ 
ber cockney dialect. 

6. Comment as well as you can on the quality of the theory 
of history found in the sixth paragraph. 

7. Why did the Puritans hate puns? 

8. What examples are given of the “gravest wisdom and 
the highest breeding” (1. 68) ? 

9. What was “Plato his saying” ( 1 . 77) about man? 

10. Analogy is likeness between two things based on char¬ 
acteristics of the things. Point out examples of analogy in 
this selection. 


SIR WILLIAM OSLER 


Sir William Osler (1849-1919) was, like Holmes, a dis¬ 
tinguished physician with literary abilities. He was born at 
Bond Head, Upper Canada, and was educated at Trinity 
College School, Weston, where his interests were theology 
and literature; but he turned to medicine and received the 
M.D. degree at McGill. After study in Europe and a brief 
period of practice he began teaching at McGill. As professor 
there of histology and physiology, as professor of clinical 
medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, as physician-in¬ 
chief at Johns Hopkins, and as professor of medicine finally 
at Oxford University, England, he had an almost fabulously 
brilliant career. His Principles and Practice of Medicine 
is one of the world’s great textbooks. Always he main¬ 
tained his enthusiasm for books and literature, being curator 
of the great Bodleian library at Oxford. In every way he 
was eminently suited to write The Student Life , from which 
the following extract comes.* 


I. Except it be a lover, no one is more interesting 
as an object of study than a student. Shakespeare 
might have made him a fourth in his immortal group. 
The lunatic with his fixed idea, the poet with his fine 
frenzy, the lover with his frantic idolatry, and the 5 
student aflame with the desire for knowledge are of 
“imagination all compact.” To an absorbing pas¬ 
sion, a whole-souled devotion, must be joined an en¬ 
during energy, if the student is to become a devotee 
of the grey-eyed goddess to whose law his services 10 

^Reprinted by permission of Constable & Company, Ltd. 

23 




24 


READING AND THINKING 


are bound. Like the quest of the Holy Grail, the 
quest of Minerva is not for all. For the one, the 
pure life; for the other, what Milton calls “a strong 
propensity of nature.” Here again the student 
isoften resembles the poet—he is born, not made. 
While the resultant of two molding forces, the acci¬ 
dental, external conditions, and the hidden germinal 
energies, which produce in each one of us national, 
family, and individual traits, the true student pos- 
20 sesses in some measure a divine spark which sets at 
naught their laws. Like the Snark, he defies defini¬ 
tion, but there are three unmistakable signs by which 
you may recognize the genuine article from a Boo- 
jum—an absorbing desire to know the truth, an un- 
25 swerving steadfastness in its pursuit, and an open 
honest heart, free from suspicion, guile, and jealousy. 

2. At the outset do not be worried about this big 
question—Truth. It is a very simple matter if each 
one of you starts with the desire to get as much as 
30 possible. No human being is constituted to know 
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; 
and even the best of men must be content with frag¬ 
ments, with partial glimpses, never the full fruition. 
In this unsatisfied quest the attitude of mind, the de- 
35 sire, the thirst—a thirst that from the soul must 
rise !—the fervent longing, are the be-all and the end- 
all. What is the student but a lover courting a 
fickle mistress who ever eludes his grasp? In this 
very elusiveness is brought out his second great char- 
40 acteristic—steadfastness of purpose. Unless from 
the start the limitations incident to our frail human 
faculties are frankly accepted, nothing but disap¬ 
pointment awaits you. The truth is the best you can 
get with your best endeavor, the best that the best 


SIR WILLIAM OSLER 


25 


men accept—with this you must learn to be satisfied, 
retaining at the same time with due humility an ear¬ 
nest desire for an ever larger portion. Only by 
keeping the mind plastic and receptive does the stu¬ 
dent escape perdition. It is not, as Charles Lamb 
remarks, that some people do not know what to do 
with truth when it is offered to them, but the tragic 
fate is to reach, after years of patient search, a con¬ 
dition of mind-blindness in which the truth is not 
recognized, though it stares you in the face. This 
can never happen to a man who has followed step 
by step the growth of a truth, and who knows the 
painful phases of its evolution. It is one of the great 
tragedies of life that every truth has to struggle to 
acceptance against honest but mind-blind students. 
Harvey knew his contemporaries well, and for 
twelve successive years demonstrated the circula¬ 
tion of the blood before daring to publish the facts 
on which the truth was based. 

3. Only steadfastness of purpose and humility en¬ 
able the student to shift his position to meet the new 
conditions in which new truths are born, or old ones 
modified beyond recognition. And, thirdly, the hon¬ 
est heart will keep him in touch with his fellow stu¬ 
dents, and furnish that sense of comradeship without 
which he travels an arid waste alone. I say ad¬ 
visedly an honest heart—the honest head is prone to 
be cold and stern, given to judgment, not mercy, and 
not always able to entertain that true charity which, 
while it thinketh no evil, is anxious to put the best 
possible interpretation upon the motives of a fellow 
worker. It will foster, too, an attitude of generous, 
friendly rivalry untinged by the green peril, jealousy, 
that is the best preventive of the growth of a bastard 


45 

50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 


26 READING AND THINKING 

scientific spirit, loving seclusion and working in a 
so lock-and-key laboratory, as timorous of light as is a 
thief. 

4. You have all become brothers in a great so¬ 
ciety, not apprentices, since that implies a master, and 
nothing should be further from the attitude of the 

85 teacher than much that is meant in that word, used 
though it be in another sense, particularly by our 
French brethren in a most delightful way, signifying 
a bond of intellectual filiation. A fraternal attitude 
is not easy to cultivate—the chasm between the chair 
90 and the bench is difficult to bridge. Two things 
have helped to put up a cantilever across the gulf* 
The successful teacher is no longer on a height, 
pumping knowledge at high pressure into passive re¬ 
ceptacles. The new methods have changed all this. 
95 He is no longer Sir Oracle, perhaps unconsciously by 
his very manner antagonizing minds to whose level 
he cannot possibly descend, but he is a senior student 
anxious to help his juniors. When a simple, earnest 
spirit animates a college, there is no appreciable in- 
100 terval between the teacher and the taught—both are 
in the same class, the one a little more advanced than 
the other. So animated, the student feels that he 
has joined a family whose honor is his honor, whose 
welfare is his own, and whose interests should be his 
105 first consideration. 

5. The hardest conviction to get into the mind of 
a beginner is that the education upon which he is en¬ 
gaged is not a college course, not a medical course, 
but a life course, for which the work of a few years 

110 under teachers is but a preparation. Whether you 
will falter and fail in the race or whether you will be 
faithful to the end depends on the training before 


27 


SIR WILLIAM OSLER 

the start, and on your staying powers, points upon 
which I need not enlarge. You can all become good 
students, a few may become great students, and now 115 
and again one of you will be found who does easily 
and well what others cannot do at all, or very badly, 
which is John Ferriar’s excellent definition of a 
genius. 


WORDS 

1. What are the roots of the following words: “lunatic” 
{ 1 . 4), “frantic” ( 1 . 5), “definition” ( 1 . 21), “fervent” 
(1. 36), “fraternal” (1. 88)? 

2. How are “frantic” and “frenzy” ( 1 . 5) connected? 

3. Explain fully the antithetical use of “accidental” ( 1 . 16) 
and “germinal” (1. 17). 

4. In the words in question 3, what is the meaning of the 
suffix alt Find four other words in the first paragraph 
formed with it. (One of them needs special explanation.) 

5. What is the meaning in this selection of each of the 
following words: “suspicion” (1. 26), “fruition” (1. 33), 
“perdition” ( 1 . 49), “filiation” ( 1 . 88)? Explain the mean¬ 
ing of the suffix ion. 

6. Note the various meanings of “charity.” In what 
sense is it used in line 73? 

7. Explain the technical meaning of “resultant” ( 1 . 16) 
and show the propriety of its figurative use here. 

8. What is the connotation of “bastard” ( 1 . 78) as used 
here? 

9. See if you can think of a single word which Osier could 
have used as a synonym for “mind-blindness” ( 1 . 53). Con¬ 
sult the selection from Mencken and discuss the word as 
possibly being slang. Note “lock-and-key laboratory” ( 1 . 80) 
in the same connection. 

10. What is the source of “animates” ( 1 . 99) and its mean¬ 
ing here? Is the meaning of “animated” ( 1 . 102) the same? 


28 


READING AND THINKING 


ii. Explain the meaning of each word in the phrase “sus¬ 
picion, guile, and jealousy” (1. 26) to show how the words 
explain by contrast what is meant by the “open, honest heart.” 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. What sentence in the first paragraph might serve as an 
outline for the extract? 

2. Using phrases of not more than three or four words 
each, summarize the topics of the first, the second, and the 
third and fourth paragraphs. 

3. Why is the third topic discussed in two paragraphs? 

4. How is the third paragraph linked to what goes before ? 
Comment on “and” ( 1 . 67). 

5. What phrase in the first paragraph is echoed by “stay¬ 
ing powers” (1. 113) ? 

6. Point out three metaphors in the fourth paragraph and 
discuss their effectiveness. 

7. The selection is notable for its literary allusions and 
quotation: Shakespeare ( 1 . 2), Milton ( 1 . 13), “a poet is born, 
not made” ( 1 . 15), Snark ( 1 . 21), Boojum ( 1 . 23), “a thirst 
that from the soul must rise” (11. 35—36), “the be-all and 
the end-all” ( 11 . 36-37), Charles Lamb ( 1 . 49), John 
Ferriar ( 1 . 118). Explain each one. (An encyclopedia, 
the Dictionary of National Biography, and Bartlett’s Famil¬ 
iar Quotations will aid.) 

8. In referring to “the Holy Grail” ( 1 . 11), “Minerva” 
( 1 . 12), “Harvey” ( 1 . 60), and “Sir Oracle” ( 1 . 95), Osier 
assumes that the reader will know and understand each. 
What should a reader know about each one to appreciate its 
use in the selection? 

9. Explain the parallelism of “Holy Grail—Minerva” and 
“the pure life”—“a strong propensity of Nature” ( 11 . 11— 
14). 

10. Who is the “grey-eyed goddess” ( 1 . 10) ? Get what- 


SIR WILLIAM OSLER 


29 


ever information you can about the association of “grey-eyed” 
with this goddess, and of “green” with jealousy (1. 77). 

11. Of what sentence in the second paragraph is the phrase 
“limitations incident to our frail human faculties” (11. 41- 
42) an echo? 

12. Discuss the contrast of “head” and “heart” ( 1 . 71). 

13. Mention some definitions of genius other than John 
Ferriar’s ( 11 . 116-117). What one does Osier himself fol¬ 
low earlier in the selection? 


MAX EASTMAN 


Max Eastman (1883- ) was born at Canandaigua, 

New York, and was educated at Williams College. For 
several years he studied and taught philosophy at Columbia 
University. He edited The Masses, 1913—1917, and later 
The Liberator. He is well known as a personality and as a 
worker in various radical movements in New York. Per¬ 
haps his greatest success as an author is The Enjoyment of 
Laughter, but The Enjoyment of Poetry, from which the 
following is taken, has had nineteen editions since 1913 and 
has become virtually a classic.* 


I. A simple experiment will distinguish two types 
of human nature. Gather a throng of people and 
pour them into a ferry-boat. By the time the boat 
has swung into the river you will find that a certain 
5 proportion have taken the trouble to climb upstairs, 
in order to be out on deck and see what is to be seen 
as they cross over. The rest have settled indoors, 
to think what they will do upon reaching the other 
side, or perhaps lose themselves in apathy or tobacco 
10 smoke. But leaving out those apathetic, or addicted 
to a single enjoyment, we may divide all the alert 
passengers on the boat into two classes—those who 
are interested in crossing the river, and those who 
are merely interested in getting across. And we 
15 may divide all the people on the earth, or all the 
moods of people, in the same way. Some of them 
are chiefly occupied with attaining ends, and some 

♦Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. 


30 




MAX EASTMAN 


31 


with receiving experiences. The distinction of the 
two will be more marked when we name the first kind 
practical, and the second poetic, for common knowl-20 
edge recognizes that a person poetic or in a poetic 
mood is impractical, and a practical person is intol¬ 
erant of poetry. 

2. We can see the force of this intolerance too, 
and how deeply it is justified, if we make clear to our 25 
minds just what it means to be practical, and what 

a great thing it is. It means to be controlled in your 
doings by the consideration of ends yet unattained. 
The practical man is never distracted by things, or 
aspects of things, which have no bearing on his pur- 30 
pose, but, ever seizing the significant, he moves with 
a single mind and a single emotion toward the goal. 
And even when the goal is achieved you will hardly 
see him pause to rejoice in it; he is already on his way 
to another achievement. For that is the irony of his 35 
nature. His joy is not in any conquest or destina¬ 
tion, but his joy is in going toward it. To which 
joy he adds the pleasure of being praised as a practi¬ 
cal man, and a man who will arrive. 

3. In a more usual sense, perhaps, a practical man 40 
is a man occupied with attaining certain ends that 
people consider important. He must stick pretty 
close to the business of feeding and preserving life. 
Nourishment and shelter, money-making, maintain¬ 
ing respectability, and if possible a family—these are 45 
the things that give its common meaning to the word 
“practical.” An acute regard for such features of 
the scenery, and the universe, as contribute or can be 
made to contribute to these ends, and a systematic 
neglect of all other features, are the traits of mind 50 
which this word popularly suggests. And it is be- 


32 # READING AND THINKING 

cause of the vital importance of these things to al¬ 
most all people that the word “practical” is a eulogy, 
and is able to be so scornful of the word “poetic.” 

55 4. “It is an earnest thing to be alive in this world. 

With competition, with war, with disease and 
poverty and oppression, misfortune and death on¬ 
coming, who but fools will give serious attention to 
what is not significant to the business?” 

60 5. “Yes—but what is the use of being alive in the 

world, if life is so oppressive in its moral character 
that we must always be busy getting somewhere, and 
never simply realizing where we are? What were 
the value of your eternal achieving, if we were not 
65 here on our holiday to appreciate, among other 
things, some of the things you have achieved?” 

6. Thus, if we could discover a purely poetic and 
a purely practical person, might they reason to¬ 
gether. But we can discover nothing so satisfactory 
70 to our definitions, and therefore let us conclude the 
discussion of the difference between them. It has 
led us to our own end—a clearer understanding of 
the nature of poetic people, and of all people when 
they are in a poetic mood. They are lovers of the 
75 qualities of things. They are not engaged, as the 
learned say that all life is, in becoming adjusted to an 
environment, but they are engaged in becoming ac¬ 
quainted with it. They are possessed by the impulse 
to realize, an impulse as deep, and arbitrary, and un- 
80 explained as that “will to live” which lies at the bot¬ 
tom of all the explanations. It seems but the mani¬ 
festation, indeed, of that will itself in a concrete and 
positive form. It is a wish to experience life and the 
world. That is the essence of the poetic temper. 


MAX EASTMAN 


33 


WORDS 

1. The following words are used here as a philosopher and 
critic would use them: “ends” (1. 17), “experiences” (1. 18), 
“things” (1. 29), “aspects” (1. 30), “goal” (1. 32), “moral” 
(1. 61), “qualities” (1. 75), “realize” (1. 79), “essence” 

(1. 84). 

(a) Define each one from that point of view. 

(b) Compare “essence” as used here with its use in the 
selections from Milne (see p. 104) and Royce (see 
p. 224). 

(c) Consider “ends” in relation to “the end justifies the 
means.” Is “goal” an acceptable synonym for “end”? 

2. “Throng” ( 1 . 2), “pour” ( 1 . 3), “swung” ( 1 . 4). 
What other words might have been used in these sentences? 
What gives these their especial effectiveness? 

3. Look up the source of “apathetic” ( 1 . 10). List other 
words formed on the same root. 

4. Define “irony” ( 1 . 35). Give some examples. Just 
how is it different from “sarcasm” (see the selection from 
Pegler, p. 115) and “paradox” (see the selection from Irv¬ 
ing, p. 132) ? 

5. Look up the etymology of “eulogy” ( 1 . 53). List 
other words having the same prefix. 

6. Why is “vital” ( 1 . 52) especially good? 

7. What is the sense here of “universe” ( 1 . 48) ? Con¬ 
trast “world” (1. 55). 

8. Why “earnest” ( 1 - 55 )? 

9. Explain the use of “were” ( 1 . 63). 

10. Explain the precise contrast indicated by “adjusted” 
(1. 76) and “acquainted” (1. 77). 

11. What is the special force of “possessed” ( 1 . 78) ? 

12. Suggest antonyms for “concrete” ( 1 . 82) and “positive” 
( 1 . 83). Does Eastman use both words to emphasize his idea, 
or is there a difference in meaning? 


34 READING AND THINKING 

13. What part of speech is “it” in line 25? In line 26? 
In line 27 ? 

14. Define, as used here, “addicted” ( 1 . 10), “alert” ( 1 . 11), 
“moods” (1. 16), “acute” (1. 47), “systematic” (1. 49), 
“eternal” (1. 64), “arbitrary” (1. 79). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. What is the key sentence of the first paragraph? (The 
key sentence states the idea which the paragraph develops.) 

2. Transitions: 

(a) How is the second paragraph joined to the first? 

(b) How is the third paragraph joined to the second? 

(c) The fourth paragraph has no obvious link to the 
third. Can you justify the omission? 

(d) Point out the most obvious transition device in the 
extract. 

3. Comment upon the order of the words in series in the 
fourth paragraph. 

4. Six sentences in this extract begin with coordinate con¬ 
junctions. Point them out and justify their use. 

5. List in parallel columns five or six contrasting words 
or phrases descriptive of the practical and the poetic temper. 

6. What is the essence of the practical man’s defense of 
himself and of the poetical man’s reply? 

7. “The best defense is an offense.” From this point of 
view discuss the arguments for the practical man as to posi¬ 
tion and content. 

8. What is the distinction between “people” and the 
“moods of people” (11. 15—16) ? 

9. “All the alert passengers on the boat” . . . “all the 
people on the earth” ( 11 . 11-15). Is the analogy exact? 

10. What would be the change in meaning if the words 
“and a single emotion” (1. 32) were omitted? 

11. What explanations are meant in “all the explanations” 
(1. 81)? 


MAX EASTMAN 


35 


12. “Definitions” (L* 70) . . . “understanding” ( 1 . 72). 
What is the difference, and why is the second more suitable 
to Eastman’s purpose? 

SUGGESTED WORK 

1. Compare the poetical person with Pater’s Aesthetic 
Critic (see p. 192). 

2. Compare the discussion of the poetical here with that 
of poetry in Royce (see p. 222). 

3. See whether the selection from Santayana (see p. 207) 
involves a contrast of practical and poetic . 


HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT 


Hubert Howe Bancroft (1832-1918) was born in Gran¬ 
ville, Ohio, and was educated in the village schools there. 
At sixteen he was working for a Buffalo bookseller. He fol¬ 
lowed his father to the California goldfields but made his 
fortune with a publishing firm in San Francisco. His en¬ 
thusiasm for history, especially of the Pacific Coast, led him 
to establish an amazing corps of workers to collect material 
and compose an extensive series of volumes—a kind of fac¬ 
tory for the production of history. Eventually, the source 
material amounted to 60,000 volumes. Bancroft published 
over his name only, assigning credit elsewhere. The fol¬ 
lowing selection from The History of Mexico is not certainly 
by him, but it undoubtedly reflects his point of view. 


1. The ideal heroic character is to be viewed from 
two standpoints: the effect of heroism on the hero, 
and on the world. A very bad person may do man¬ 
kind a great service. An evil-minded man, while 

5 sinking his soul yet deeper in corruption, may bring 
benefactions upon society. But even a fairly good 
man cannot increase his innate nobleness of character 
while doing injury to his fellows. 

2. I do not know that the claim of “good man” 

10 was ever advanced for Hernan Cortes, except, in¬ 
deed, by that strange fanaticism which, dazzled by 
one object, fails to see other objects, or the terrible 
means for their attainment. He and his followers 
formed a sad mixture of good and evil, in which the 

flatter predominated, if judged by the moral Stand- 


36 



HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT 37 

ard which they had formed for themselves as sol¬ 
diers of the cross. The grossest injustice, the most 
horrible wickedness constituted part of their moral 
ideal, so that while fighting for the highest morality 
they were the most immoral of men. Long after 
the conquest was consummated, under the ministra¬ 
tions of men of piety and ability, it would seem that 
the weapons used by these conquerors, who at times 
justified murder as the highest morality, were still 
instinct with blood, even as the cornel-wood spear 
with which the king of Thrace transfixed the un¬ 
happy Polydorus springs into life instinct with the 
blood of Priam’s slaughtered son. 

3. Cortes was not an idealist after the manner of 
Columbus. Both were full of egoism; the spiritual¬ 
mindedness of both was essentially selfish. They 
would both dictate terms to God and their king, that 
for so much service they must have so much reward. 
Both were full of the follies of their day; but Colum¬ 
bus displayed a grave, unconscious folly, while Cortes 
consciously indulged in all the follies of lust and 
cruelty that prudence admitted or his aim demanded. 
Cortes abandoned himself to ambition; Columbus 
to brooding thought. The insanity of reckless ad¬ 
venture was not the insanity of Columbus, who never¬ 
theless was as mad as any lunatic in his own way. 
Commanding energy and practical daring were as 
conspicuous in Cortes as in Columbus; but it hap¬ 
pened that the aims of Columbus were of greater 
import to the race than those of Cortes. 

4. How alike, and yet how different, these men. 
Cortes was impetuous and extravagant; Columbus, 
calm, calculating, and prudent. One was full of joy¬ 
ous activity, the simple exercise of which was his 


20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


38 


READING AND THINKING 


50greatest pleasure; obligations of every sort sat 
lightly on him; the other was but an instrument in 
the hands of Providence. Both were ambitious, 
both excessively religious; but Cortes, in the main, 
made religion subservient to advancement, as before 
55 noted, while mundane glories to Columbus were hol¬ 
low indeed beside his heavenly aspirations. Both 
were exceedingly great men; both became eminent by 
a selfish adventure of self; but Columbus saw the 
New World through the glorious haze of immor- 
6 otality, while Cortes viewed Mexico under the lightly 
woven covering of personal ambition. 

5. Cortes was an Antony rather than a Caesar, 
nor did he lack that one great gift of Antony’s, sub¬ 
ordination, as we have seen. He was not so greatly 
65 in love with himself, stood not so greatly in awe of 
himself, as Caesar; he was possessed of finer percep¬ 
tions and feelings, and with consummate versatility 
could drop himself out of his plans as occasion re¬ 
quired. Nor was Cortes without imagination and 
70 the aesthetic sense, though of a grosser and sensual 
kind; but it is not in great men that we are to look 
for the swelling harmonies of nature. 


WORDS 

1. We are all in the habit of reading and using the follow¬ 
ing terms, but as each involves an abstraction, some divergence 
in meaning is possible: “Ideal heroic character” ( 1 . 1), “a 
very bad person” (1. 3), “an evil-minded man” (1. 4), “soul” 
(1. 5), “a fairly good man” ( 11 . 6-7), “innate nobleness of 
character” (1. 7), “good man” (1. 9), “men of piety and 
ability” (1. 22), “idealist” (1. 29), “egoism” (1. 30), 
“spiritual-mindedness” (11. 30-31), “ambition” (1. 38), 


HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT 


39 


“finer perceptions and feelings” (11. 66-67), “imagination 
and the aesthetic sense” (11. 69-70), “sensual” (1. 70). 

(a) In what sense, apparently, does Bancroft use each of 
them? 

(b) In what sense should each be used, in your opinion? 

2. What is the meaning here of “corruption” ( 1 . 5), 
“benefactions” (1. 6), “terrible” (1. 12), “sad” (1. 14), 
“grossest” (1. 17), “instinct” (1. 25), “transfixed” (1. 26), 
“essentially” (1. 31), “prudence” (1. 37), “cornel-wood” 
(1. 25), “import” (1. 45), “mundane” (1. 55), “subordina¬ 
tion” (1. 63) ? 

3. Note in the first sentence the three forms “heroic,” 
“heroism,” and “hero.” Indicate the equivalent series of 
forms for “egoism” (1. 30), “idealist” (1. 29), and “aesthetic” 
( 1 . 70 ). 

4. Indicate the origins and the differences, or similarities, 
in the meaning of “folly” (1. 35), “insanity” (1. 39), “mad” 
(1. 41), and “lunatic” (1. 41). 

5. Note the connection of “sense” ( 1 . 70) and “sensual” 
( 1 . 70 ). 

(a) List as many words as you can which are derived from 
the same source. 

(b) Suggest why “sensual” has become a derogatory word 
while “sensuous” and “sensitive” have not. 

6. Explain the special meanings which arise from the com¬ 
bination of words in the phrases “grave, unconscious folly” 
(1. 35), “brooding thought” (1. 39), “practical daring” 
(1. 42), “joyous activity” (11. 48—49), “selfish adventure of 
self” (1. 58), and “swelling harmonies of nature” (1. 72). 

7. Note the differences in the pronunciation and meaning 
of “consummate” as an adjective (1. 67) and as a verb (1. 21). 
Can you think of other examples? 


40 


READING AND THINKING 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Cortes is considered in relation (a) to the heroic char¬ 
acter in general; (b) to the ideals of his associates; (c) to 
Columbus; (d) to Antony. 

(a) Point out the divisions devoted to each and the tran¬ 
sitions between them. 

(b) Find a phrase or sentence to express the gist of each 
division. 

2. The sentence “How alike, and yet how different, these 
men” ( 1 . 46) is both a summary and a topic sentence. Ex¬ 
plain. 

3. The discussion is judicial in tone. Explain. 

4. The method here is that of the philosopher-historian— 
drawing generalizations or abstract statements from the facts 
presented. Find sentences that illustrate this method. 

5. In the first paragraph Bancroft speaks of two aspects of 
heroism. What are they and what is said of each? 

6. In the second paragraph Bancroft mentions two kinds 
of fanaticism. What are they? 

7. Is the “moral standard” (11. 15-16) the same as the 
“moral ideal” ( 11 . 18-19)? Is the statement that “while 
fighting for the highest morality they were the most immoral 
of men” (11. 19-20) a statement of paradox or of inconsist¬ 
ency? 

8. Both Cortes and Columbus were idealists ( 11 . 29—30). 

Both were ( a )-, ( b )-, (c)-, (d) -. But 

Columbus displayed - while Cortes indulged in -. 

Cortes abandoned himself to -, Columbus to -. 

Cortes had the insanity of-, while Columbus was-. 

Both were energetic and daring, but the aims of Columbus 
were-and of Cortes were -. Fill in the blanks. 

9. List the likenesses and differences mentioned in the 
fourth paragraph. 














HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT 41 

10. What is the point of the comparison of Cortes to 
Antony and Caesar? 

11. Explain the allusion to Polydorus. 

12. Explain the figures of speech in the last sentence of 
the fourth paragraph. 


THOMAS BABINGTON, 
LORD MACAULAY 


Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay (1880-1859), was 
born into a well-to-do family, but his great success in life can 
be credited to his own brilliance and energy. He was edu¬ 
cated at private schools and Trinity College, Cambridge. 
He studied for the bar, but abandoned the idea of a career 
in the courts when his first published essays proved a sensa¬ 
tional success. He was elected to Parliament in 1830 and 
had a long and brilliant career there. For a time he was a 
member of the Supreme Council of India. Macaulay wrote 
poetry, essays on a variety of subjects both literary and his¬ 
torical, and The History of England from the Accession of 
James II, from which the following extract is taken. 


i. On the Wednesday morning, at his particular 
request, Doctor Thomas Tenison, who then held the 
vicarage of St. Martin’s, and, in that important cure, 
had obtained the high esteem of the public, came to 
5 the Tower. From Tenison, whose opinions were 
known to be moderate, the Duke expected more in¬ 
dulgence than Ken and Turner were disposed to 
show. But Tenison, whatever might be his views 
concerning nonresistance in the abstract, thought the 
10 late rebellion rash and wicked, and considered Mon¬ 
mouth’s notion respecting marriage as a most dan¬ 
gerous delusion. Monmouth was obstinate. He 
had prayed, he said, for the divine direction. His 
sentiments remained unchanged; and he could not 
15 doubt that they were correct. Tenison’s exhorta- 


42 



THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 43 

tions were in a milder tone than those of the Bishops. 
But he, like them, thought that he should not be justi¬ 
fied in administering the Eucharist to one whose peni¬ 
tence was of so unsatisfactory a nature. 

2. The hour drew near: all hope was over; and20 
Monmouth had passed from pusillanimous fear to 
the apathy of despair. His children were brought 
to his room that he might take leave of them, and 
were followed by his wife. He spoke to her kindly, 
but without emotion. Though she was a woman of 25 
great strength of mind, and had little cause to love 
him, her misery was such that none of the bystanders 
could refrain from weeping. He alone was un¬ 
moved. 

3. It was ten o’clock. The coach of the Lieuten-30 
ant of the Tower was ready. Monmouth requested 
his spiritual advisers to accompany him to the place 
of execution; and they consented: but they told him 
that, in their judgment, he was about to die in a peril¬ 
ous state of mind, and that, if they attended him, it 35 
would be their duty to exhort him to the last. As 
he passed along the ranks of the guards he saluted 
them with a smile, and mounted the scaffold with a 
firm tread. Tower Hill was covered up to the 
chimney tops with an innumerable multitude of 40 
gazers, who, in awful silence, broken only by sighs 
and the noise of weeping, listened for the last accents 
of the darling of the people. “I shall say little,” he 
began. “I come here, not to speak, but to die. I 
die a Protestant of the Church of England.” The 45 
Bishops interrupted him, and told him that, unless he 
acknowledged resistance to be sinful, he was no mem¬ 
ber of their church. He went on to speak of his 
Henrietta. She was, he said, a young lady of virtue 


44 


READING AND THINKING 


50 and honor. He loved her to the last, and he could 
not die without giving utterance to his feelings. 
The Bishops again interfered and begged him not to 
use such language. Some altercation followed. 
The divines have been accused of dealing harshly 
55 with the dying man. But they appear to have only 
discharged what, in their view, was a sacred duty. 
Monmouth knew their principles, and, if he wished 
to avoid their importunity, should have dispensed 
with their attendance. Their general arguments 
60 against resistance had no effect on him. But when 
they reminded him of the ruin which he had brought 
on his brave and loving followers, of the blood which 
had been shed, of the souls which had been sent un¬ 
prepared to the great account, he was touched, and 
65 said, in a softened voice, “I do own that. I am 
sorry that it ever happened.” They prayed with him 
long and fervently; and he joined in their petitions 
till they invoked a blessing on the King. He re¬ 
mained silent. “Sir,” said one of the assistants, “do 
70 you not pray for the King with us?” Monmouth 
paused some time, and, after an internal struggle, 
exclaimed, “Amen.” But it was in vain that the prel¬ 
ates implored him to address to the soldiers and to 
the people a few words on the duty of obedience to 
75 the government. “I will make no speeches,” he ex¬ 
claimed. “Only ten words, my Lord.” He turned 
away, called his servant, and put into the man’s hand 
a toothpick case, the last token of ill-starred love. 
“Give it,” he said, “to that person.” He then ac- 
80 costed John Ketch the executioner, a wretch who had 
butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose 
name has, during the century and a half, been vul¬ 
garly given to all who have succeeded him in his odb 


THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 45 

ous office. “Here/’ said the Duke, “are six guineas 
for you. Do not hack me as you did my Lord Rus-ss 
sell. I have heard that you struck him three or four 
times. My servant will give you some more gold if 
you do the work well.” He then undressed, felt the 
edge of the axe, expressed some fear that it was not 
sharp enough, and laid his head on the block. The 90 
divines in the meantime continued to ejaculate with 
great energy: “God accept your repentance; God 
accept your imperfect repentance.” 

4. The hangman addressed himself to his office. 
But he had been disconcerted by what the Duke had 95 
said. The first blow inflicted only a slight wound. 
The Duke struggled, rose from the block, and looked 
reproachfully at the executioner. The head sank 
down once more. The stroke was repeated again 
and again; but still the neck was not severed, and 100 
the body continued to move. Yells of rage and hor¬ 
ror rose from the crowd. Ketch flung down the axe 
with a curse. “I cannot do it,” he said; “my heart 
fails me.” “Take up the axe, man,” cried the 
sheriff. “Fling him over the rails,” roared the mob. 105 
At length the axe was taken up. Two more blows ex¬ 
tinguished the last remains of life; but a knife was 
used to separate the head from the shoulders. The 
crowd was wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that 
the executioner was in danger of being torn in pieces, 110 
and was conveyed away under a strong guard. 

5. In the meantime many handkerchiefs were 
dipped in the Duke’s blood; for, by a large part of 
the multitude he was regarded as a martyr who had 
died for the Protestant religion. The head and 115 
body were placed in a coffin covered with black vel¬ 
vet, and were laid privately under the communion 


46 


READING AND THINKING 


table of St. Peter’s Chapel in the Tower. Within 
four years the pavement of the chancel was again dis- 
i20turbed, and hard by the remains of Monmouth were 
laid the remains of Jeffreys. In truth there is no 
sadder spot on the earth than that little cemetery. 
Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster 
Abbey and Saint Paul’s, with genius and virtue, with 
125public veneration and with imperishable renown; not, 
as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with 
everything that is most endearing in social and do¬ 
mestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in hu¬ 
man nature and in human destiny, with the savage 
130 triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, 
the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the 
miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. 
Thither have been carried, through successive ages, 
by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner 
135 following, the bleeding relics of men who had been 
the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the 
oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts. 
Thither was borne, before the window where Jane 
Grey was praying, the mangled corpse of Guilford 
ho Dudley. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and 
Protector of the realm, reposes there by the brother 
whom he murdered. There has mouldered away 
the headless trunk of John Fisher, Bishop of Roch¬ 
ester and Cardinal of Saint Vitalis, a man worthy 
us to have lived in a better age, and to have died in a 
better cause. There are laid John Dudley, Duke of 
Northumberland, Lord High Admiral, and Thomas 
Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Lord High Treasurer. 
There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature and 
150 fortune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and 
whom valor, grace, genius, royal favor, popular ap- 


THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 47 

plause, conducted to an early and ignominious doom. 
Not far off sleep two chiefs of the great house of 
Howard, Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and 
Philip, eleventh Earl of Arundel. Here and there, 
among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring 
statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers; Margaret of 
Salisbury, the last of the proud name of Plantagenet, 
and those two fair Queens who perished by the jeal¬ 
ous rage of Henry. Such was the dust with which 
the dust of Monmouth mingled. 

6. Yet a few months, and the quiet village of Tod- 
dington, in Bedfordshire, witnessed a still sadder 
funeral. Near that village stood an ancient and 
stately hall, the seat of the Wentworths. The tran¬ 
sept of the parish church had long been their burial 
place. To that burial place, in the spring which fol¬ 
lowed the death of Monmouth, was borne the coffin 
of the young Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestede. 
Her family reared a sumptuous mausoleum over her 
remains: but a less costly memorial of her was long 
contemplated with far deeper interest. Her name, 
carved by the hand of him whom she loved too well, 
was, a few years ago, still discernible on a tree in the 
adjoining park. 

WORDS 

1. The following words are church terms; point out the 
ones which are used in other senses and explain, if you can, 
the transfer of meaning: “cure” ( 1 . 3), “Eucharist” ( 1 . 18), 
“divines” (1. 54), “prelates” (1. 72), “martyr” (1. 114), 
“communion” (1. 117), “chancel” (1. 119), “seat” (1. 165), 
“transept” (1. 165). 

2. The following words end with the suffix ous: “pusil- 


155 

160 

165 

170 

175 


48 


READING AND THINKING 


lanimous” (1. 21), “perilous” (1. 34), “odious” (1. 83), 
“ignominious” ( 1 . 152), “sumptuous” ( 1 . 170). What does 
the suffix mean? What is its grammatical function? Name 
some other adjectives so constructed. 

3. What are the various uses of “notion” ( 1 . 11) ? Sug¬ 
gest how it got its significance in the phrase “Dry goods and 
notions.” 

4. Consider the following pairs of synonyms and point out 
which one of each pair is the more forceful. Can you sug¬ 
gest a reason? “Exhort” ( 1 . 36)—advise or warn; “alterca¬ 
tion” (1. 53)—dispute; “invoked” (1. 68)—called on; 
“accosted” (1. 79)—approached; “ejaculate” (1. 91)—ex¬ 
claim. 

5. What is the meaning in this selection of “delusion” 
(1. 12), “apathy” (1. 22), “spiritual” (1. 32), “principles” 
(1. 57), “importunity” (1. 58), “fervently” (1. 67), “vul¬ 
garly” (1. 82), “disconcerted” (1. 95), “ecstasy” (1. 109), 
“lavished” (1. 150), “bounties” (1. 150), “mausoleum” 
(1. 170), “contemplated” (1. 172) ? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Point out precisely how Macaulay indicates his transi¬ 
tion from paragraph to paragraph. 

2. What is the topic sentence of the fifth paragraph? 

3. How is the final sentence of the fifth paragraph related 
to the topic sentence and to the paragraph as a whole? 

4. What effect has the sixth paragraph when it is con¬ 
sidered in relation to the five preceding paragraphs? 

5. Compare the sentence structure of the fourth para¬ 
graph with that of the fifth. What is the author’s purpose? 

6. “Monmouth knew their principles” ( 1 . 57). They 

had principles about - and about -. Fill in the 

blanks. 

7. Consider the following phrases and reconstruct from 
them the background of one of Monmouth’s differences of 




THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY 49 

opinion with the Bishops: “Monmouth’s notion respecting 
marriage” ( 11 . io-ii), “He spoke to her kindly but without 
emotion” (11. 24-25), “had little cause to love him” 
( 11 . 26-27), “He went on to speak of his Henrietta” ( 11 . 48- 
49), “The last token of ill-starred love” ( 1 . 78), “The 
young Baroness Wentworth” ( 1 . 169). 

8. Explain in a similar way the other difference of opinion. 
(See question 6.) 

9. Point out details to show Monmouth’s position in the 
eyes of the public. 

10. A contrast is indicated by the phrase “in the abstract” 
( 1 . 9). What is it? 

11. What difference of opinion between Monmouth and 
the Bishops is indicated in the last half of the first paragraph 
(11. 12-19) ? 

12. In the fifth paragraph Macaulay mentions Jeffreys, 
Jane Grey, Guilford Dudley, Edward Seymour and his 
brother, John Fisher, John Dudley, Thomas Cromwell, “an¬ 
other Essex,” Thomas Howard, Philip Howard, Margaret 
Plantagenet, and “two fair Queens” of Henry VIII—four¬ 
teen people in all. 

(a) Consult the Dictionary of National Biography or the 
Encyclopedia Britannica for enough information to 
show how each fits Macaulay’s introductory remarks 
in the paragraph. 

(b) From the list of names illustrate the phrases “the 
savage triumph of implacable enemies” and “the in¬ 
constancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends” 
(11. 129-131). 

(c) Suppose everything were omitted in the fifth para¬ 
graph from “Thither have been” ( 1 . 133) to “rage of 
Henry” ( 1 . 160). What would be the effect on the 
paragraph ? 

13. Do you see any basis here for the pun in Holmes (see 
p. 20) on the Macaulay-flowers of literature? 


RICHARD HENRY DANA 


Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882) was born in Cam¬ 
bridge, Massachusetts, of a distinguished New England fam¬ 
ily, and was educated at Harvard. His college course was 
interrupted by bad eyesight resulting from measles, and he 
took the then common “treatment” for ailing youths—two 
years at sea as an ordinary seaman. He returned strong and 
well, graduated at the head of his class, and went on to study 
law. His career as a lawyer and public figure in Massa¬ 
chusetts was useful and distinguished. His account of his 
years at sea, Two Years before the Mast (from which the 
following selection is taken), has long been a classic, and has 
given Dana the unusual reputation of a literary man of one 
book.* 


I. Monday, Nov. 19th. This was a black day in 
our calendar. At seven o’clock in the morning, it 
being our watch below, we were aroused from a 
sound sleep by the cry of “All hands ahoy! a man 
5 overboard!” This unwonted cry sent a thrill 
through the heart of every one, and hurrying on 
deck, we found the vessel hove flat aback, with all 
her studding sails set; for the boy who was at the 
helm left it to throw something overboard, and the 
10 carpenter, who was an old sailor, knowing that the 
wind was light, put the helm down and hove her 
aback. The watch on deck were lowering away the 

*This selection from Richard Henry Dana is used by permission 
of, and by arrangement with the publishers, Houghton Mifflin 
Company. 


50 




RICHARD HENRY DANA 


51 


quarter-boat, and I got on deck just in time to heave 
myself into her as she was leaving the side; but it was 
not until out upon the wide Pacific, in our little boat, 
that I knew whom we had lost. It was George Ball¬ 
mer, a young English sailor, who was prized by the 
officers as an active and willing seaman, and by the 
crew as a lively, hearty fellow, and a good shipmate. 
He was going aloft to fit a strap round the main top- 
masthead, for ringtail halyards, and had the strap 
and block, a coil of halyards, and a marline-spike 
about his neck. He fell from the starboard futtock 
shrouds, and not knowing how to swim, and being 
heavily dressed, with all those things round his neck, 
he probably sank immediately. We pulled astern, 
in the direction in which he fell, and though we knew 
that there was no hope of saving him, yet no one 
wished to speak of returning, and we rowed about 
for nearly an hour, without the hope of doing any¬ 
thing, but unwilling to acknowledge to ourselves that 
we must give him up. At length we turned the 
boat’s head and made towards the vessel. 

2. Death is at all times solemn, but never so much 
so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains 
with his friends, and “the mourners go about the 
streets;” but when a man falls overboard at sea and 
is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a diffi¬ 
culty in realizing it, which give to it an air of awful 
mystery. A man dies on shore—you follow his 
body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. You 
are often prepared for the event. There is always 
something which helps you to realize it when it hap¬ 
pens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man is 
shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled 
body remains an object, and a real evidence; but at 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


52 


READING AND THINKING 


sea, the man is near you—at your side—you hear his 
voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a 
vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea—to use 
50 a homely but expressive phrase—you miss a man so 
much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little 
bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and 
months see no forms and hear no voices but their 
own and one is taken suddenly from among them, 
55 and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing 
a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill 
up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the 
forecastle, and one man wanting when the small 
night watch is mustered. There is one less to take 
60 the wheel and one less to lay out with you upon the 
yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his 
voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to 
you, and each of your senses feels the loss. 

3. All these things make such a death peculiarly 
65 solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew 
for some time. There is more kindness shown by 
the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one an¬ 
other. There is more quietness and seriousness. 
The oath and the loud laugh are gone. The officers 
70 are more watchful, and the crew go more carefully 
aloft. The lost man is seldom mentioned, or is dis¬ 
missed with a sailor’s rude eulogy—“Well, poor 
George is gone! His cruise is up soon! He knew 
his work, and did his duty, and was a good ship- 
75 mate.” Then usually follows some allusion to an¬ 
other world, for sailors are almost all believers; but 
their notions and opinions are unfixed and at loose 
ends. They say,—“God won’t be hard upon the 
poor fellow,” and seldom get beyond the common 
so phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and 


RICHARD HENRY DANA 53 

hard treatment here will excuse them hereafter,— 
“To work hard, live hard, die hard, and go to hell 
after all, would be hard indeed! n Our cook, a 
simple-hearted old African, who had been through a 
good deal in his day, and was rather seriously in¬ 
clined, always going to church twice a day when on 
shore, and reading his Bible on a Sunday in the gal¬ 
ley, talked to the crew about spending their Sabbaths 
badly, and told them that they might go as suddenly 
as George had, and be as little prepared. 

4. Yet a sailor’s life is at best but a mixture of a 
little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with 
much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolt¬ 
ing, the sublime with the commonplace, and the 
solemn with the ludicrous. 

5. We had hardly returned on board with our sad 
report, before an auction was held of the poor man’s 
clothes. The captain had first, however, called all 
hands aft and asked them if they were satisfied that 
everything had been done to save the man, and if 
they thought there was any use in remaining there 
longer. The crew all said that it was in vain, for the 
man did not know how to swim, and was very heavily 
dressed. So we then filled away and kept her off to 
her course. 

WORDS 

1 . The following words refer to sailing ships; explain each 
one and note the ones which still have a use: “studding sails” 
( 1 . 8 ), “main top-masthead” ( 11 . 20 - 21 ), “ringtail halyards” 
( 1 . 21 ), “futtock shrouds” ( 11 . 23 - 24 ), “filled away” ( 1 . 
io 4)- 

2. The following marine terms are still in use; explain 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 


54 


READING AND THINKING 


each and point out the ones used in other connections: “be¬ 
low” (1. 3), “ahoy” (1. 4), “overboard” (1. 5), “vessel” 
(1. 7), “hove flat aback” (1. 7), “helm down” (1. 11), “deck” 
(1. 12), “aloft” (1. 20), “marline-spike” (1. 22), “forecastle” 
(L58), “yard” (1. 61), “galley” (1. 87). 

3. See whether you can find out why ships are considered 
feminine. 

4. “Homely but expressive phrase” ( 1 . 50). “Homely” 
means “homelike.” Explain how the word has come to have 
a meaning quite independent of “homelike.” 

5. In what sense is “miss a man so much” a homely phrase? 
Why is “miss” italicized? 

6. Explain the meaning in this extract of “unwonted” 
(1. 5), “awful” (1. 39), “mustered” (1. 59), “eulogy” (1. 72), 
and “allusion” (1. 75). 

7. “To lay out with you upon the yard” ( 11 . 60-61). Is 
the infinitive transitive? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Point out the transition words and devices linking the 
paragraphs. 

2. How does the transition between the first and second 
paragraphs, and the fourth and fifth, differ from the rest? 

3. The second paragraph involves contrast: (1) on shore, 

(a) -; at sea, (a) -; (2) onshore, ( a )-, ( b) -, 

( c )-, (d) -, ( e )-; at sea, (a) -. Fill in the 

blanks. 

4. The second paragraph involves a further comparison. 
What is it? 

5. In the third paragraph the effect upon the crew is 

00 -> W-> (c) -, (d) -, (e) -, (/)-, 

(ff) -, ( h )-, (*)-. Fill in the blanks. 

6. Of these effects which are general and which particular 
to the death of George? 



















RICHARD HENRY DANA 


55 


7. If the first and fifth paragraphs were not separated by 
the rest, they would form a clear, complete narrative. But 
what would be the result of omitting the intervening para¬ 
graphs? 

8. The idea of the second paragraph is to be inferred from 
the concrete statements made. Express the idea in a sen¬ 
tence, using abstract terms. 

9. What characteristics of sailors are implied in the third 
paragraph? How do they compare with the usual concep¬ 
tion of seamen? 

10. Summarize the seaman’s religion as expressed in the 
third paragraph. What ideas does your summary suggest 
about the origin of the forms or symbols of religion ? What 
do you infer about Dana’s own religion? 

11. “Beautiful—revolting”; “sublime—commonplace”; 

“solemn—ludicrous” ( 11 . 93-95). The usual antonyms are 
beautiful—ugly; sublime—ridiculous; solemn—undignified. 
Suggest some explanations for Dana’s choice. 

12. In what ways does the selection illustrate Dana’s re¬ 
marks about the sailor’s life in the fourth paragraph? 


SUGGESTED WORK 


Compare this treatment of death with that of Hawthorne 
(see p. 61) and of Macaulay (see pp. 45-46). 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 


Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was, like Holmes 
and Thoreau, very much a New Englander, in what might 
be called the Puritan intellectual type. He was born at 
Salem, Massachusetts, and was educated at Bowdoin College. 
His early life was one of indecision and struggle. After 
years of hackwriting, he attracted some attention with Twice 
Told Tales, made a happy marriage, and settled at Concord 
for several productive years at the Old Manse. There he 
was a friend of Emerson and an intimate of Thoreau. The 
Scarlet Letter, 1850, gave him long-lasting fame. His pleas¬ 
ure in the surroundings of Concord is reflected in the follow¬ 
ing selection from Mosses from an Old Manse * 


1. In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave 
me no pretext for not fulfilling it, there was in the 
rear of the house the most delightful little nook of a 
study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a 
5 scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; 
for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used 
to watch the Assyrian dawn and Paphian sunset and 
moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. 
When I first saw the room, its walls were blackened 
iowith the smoke of unnumbered years, and made still 
blacker by the grim prints of Puritan ministers that 
hung around. These worthies looked strangely like 
bad angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so 
continua lly and so sternly with the devil that some- 

*This selection from Nathaniel Hawthorne is used by permission 
of, and by arrangement with the publishers, Houghton Mifflin 
Company. 


56 




NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 57 

what of his sooty fierceness had been imparted to 
their own visages. They had all vanished now; a 
cheerful coat of paint and golden-tinted paper- 
hangings lighted up the small apartment; while the 
shadow of a willow tree that swept against the over¬ 
hanging eaves attempered the cheery western sun¬ 
shine. In place of the grim prints there was the 
sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael’s Madon¬ 
nas and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of 
Como. The only other decorations were a purple 
vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze one con¬ 
taining graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no 
means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as 
chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about 
the room, seldom to be disturbed. 

2. The study had three windows, set with little, 
old-fashioned panes of glass, each with a crack across 
it. The two on the western side looked, or rather 
peeped, between the willow branches down into the 
orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. 
The third, facing northward, commanded a broader 
view of the river at a spot where its hitherto obscure 
waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was 
at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in 
the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long 
and deadly struggle between two nations; he saw the 
irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side 
of the river and the glittering line of the British on 
the hither bank. He awaited in an agony of sus¬ 
pense the rattle of the musketry. It came, and there 
needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle smoke 
around this quiet house. 

3. Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help con¬ 
sidering as my guest in the Old Manse and entitled 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


58 


READING AND THINKING 


to all courtesy in the way of sight-showing,—per- 
50 haps he will choose to take a nearer view of the 
memorable spot. We stand now on the river’s brink. 
It may well be called the Concord, the river of peace 
and quietness; for it is certainly the most unexcitable 
and sluggish stream that ever loitered imperceptibly 
55 towards its eternity—the sea. Positively, I had 
lived three weeks beside it before it grew quite clear 
to my perception which way the current flowed. It 
never has a vivacious aspect except when a north¬ 
western breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny 
60 day. From the incurable indolence of its nature, the 
stream is happily incapable of becoming the slave of 
human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a wild, 
free mountain torrent. While all things else are 
compelled to subserve some useful purpose, it idles 
65 its sluggish life away in lazy liberty, without turning 
a solitary spindle or affording even water power 
enough to grind the corn that .grows upon its banks. 
The torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a 
bright, pebbly shore, nor so much as a narrow strip 
70 of glistening sand, in any part of its course. It slum¬ 
bers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow 
grass, and bathes the overhanging boughs of elder 
bushes and willows or the roots of elms and ash trees 
and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes grow along 
75 its plashy shore; the yellow water lily spreads its 
broad, flat leaves on the margin; and the fragrant 
white pond lily abounds, generally selecting a posi¬ 
tion just so far from the river’s brink that it cannot 
be grasped save at the hazard of plunging in. 
so 4. It is a marvel whence this perfect flower de¬ 
rives its loveliness and perfume, springing as it does 
from the black mud over which the river sleeps, and 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 59 

where lurk the slimy eel and speckled frog and the 
mud turtle, whom continual washing cannot cleanse. 
It is the very same black mud out of which the yellow 
lily sucks its obscene life and noisome odor. Thus 
we see, too, in the world, that some persons assimi¬ 
late only what is ugly and evil from the same moral 
circumstances which supply good and beautiful re¬ 
sults—the fragrance of celestial flowers—to the daily 
life of others. 

5. The reader must not, from any testimony of 
mine, contract a dislike towards our slumberous 
stream. In the light of a calm and golden sunset it 
becomes lovely beyond expression; the more lovely 
for the quietude that so well accords with the hour, 
when even the wind, after blustering all day long, 
usually hushes itself to rest. Each tree and rock, 
and every blade of grass, is distinctly imaged, and, 
however unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty 
in the reflection. The minutest things of earth and 
the broad aspect of the firmament are pictured 
equally without effort and with the same felicity of 
success. All the sky glows downward at our feet; 
the rich clouds float through the unruffled bosom of 
the stream like heavenly thoughts through a peace¬ 
ful heart. We will not, then, malign our river as 
gross and impure while it can glorify itself with so 
adequate a picture of the heaven that broods above 
it; or, if we remember its tawny hue and the muddi¬ 
ness of its bed, let it be a symbol that the earthliest 
human soul has an infinite spiritual capacity and may 
contain the better world within its depths. But, in¬ 
deed, the same lesson might be drawn out of any 
mud puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught 
us everywhere, it must be true. 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 

115 


60 


READING AND THINKING 


6 . Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious 
track in our walk to the battleground. Here we are, 
at the point where the river was crossed by the old 

120 bridge, the possession of which was the immediate 
object of the contest. On the hither side grow two 
or three elms, throwing a wide circumference of 
shade, but which must have been planted at some 
period within the threescore years and ten that have 
125 passed since the battle day. On the farther shore, 
overhung by a clump of elder bushes, we discern the 
stone abutment of the bridge. Looking down into 
the river, I once discovered some heavy fragments 
of the timbers, all green with half a century’s growth 
130 of water moss; for during that length of time the 
tramp of horses and human footsteps has ceased 
along this ancient highway. The stream has here 
about the breadth of twenty strokes of a swimmer’s 
arm,—a space not too wide when the bullets were 
135 whistling across. Old people who dwell hereabouts 
will point out the very spots on the western bank 
where our countrymen fell down and died; and on 
this side of the river an obelisk of granite has grown 
up from the soil that was fertilized with British 
140 blood. The monument, not more than twenty feet 
in height, is such as it befitted the inhabitants of a 
village to erect in illustration of a matter of local 
interest rather than what was suitable to commemo¬ 
rate an epoch of national history. Still, by the 
us fathers of the village this famous deed was done; 
and their descendants might rightfully claim the 
privilege of building a memorial. 

7. A humbler token of the fight, yet a more inter¬ 
esting one than the granite obelisk, may be seen close 

150 under the stone wall which separates the battle- 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 61 

ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is 
the grave—marked by a small, moss-grown frag¬ 
ment of stone at the head and another at the foot— 
the grave of two British soldiers who were slain in 
the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully 
where Zechariah Brown and Thomas Davis buried 
them. Soon was their warfare ended; a weary night 
march from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry 
across the river, and then these many years of rest. 
In the long procession of slain invaders who passed 
into eternity from the battlefields of the revolution, 
these two nameless soldiers led the way. 

8 . Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over 
this grave, told me a tradition in reference to one of 
the inhabitants below. The story has something 
deeply impressive, though its circumstances cannot 
altogether be reconciled with probability. A youth 
in the service of the clergyman happened to be chop¬ 
ping wood, that April morning, at the back door of 
the Manse, and when the noise of battle rang from 
side to side of the bridge he hastened across the in¬ 
tervening field to see what might be going forward. 
It is rather strange, by the way, that this lad should 
have been so diligently at work when the whole popu¬ 
lation of town and country were startled out of their 
customary business by the advance of the British 
troops. Be that as it might, the tradition says that 
the lad now left his task and hurried to the battle¬ 
field with the axe still in his hand. The British had 
by this time retreated, the Americans were in pur¬ 
suit; and the late scene of strife was thus deserted by 
both parties. Two soldiers lay on the ground—one 
was a corpse; but, as the young New Englander drew 
nigh, the other Briton raised himself painfully upon 


155 

160 

165 

170 

175 

180 


62 


READING AND THINKING 


185 his hands and knees and gave a ghastly stare into his 
face. The boy,—it must have been a nervous im¬ 
pulse, without purpose, without thought, and beto¬ 
kening a sensitive and impressible nature rather than 
a hardened one,—the boy uplifted his axe and dealt 
190 the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow upon the 
head. 

9. I could wish that the grave might be opened; 
for I would fain know whether either of the skeleton 
soldiers has the mark of an axe in his skull. The 
195 story comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as 
an intellectual and moral exercise, I have sought to 
follow that poor youth through his subsequent career, 
and observe how his soul was tortured by the blood 
stain, contracted as it had been before the long cus- 
200 tom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity, and 
while it still seemed murderous to slay a brother man. 
This one circumstance has borne more fruit for me 
than all that history tells us of the fight. 

WORDS 

1. What does each of these words mean as used in the 
selection: “design” ( 1 . 1), “Manse” ( 1 . 6), “somewhat” 
(1. 14), “hither” (1. 43), “musketry” (1. 44), “spindle” 
(1. 66), “prairies” (1. 71), “plashy” (1. 75), “brink” (1. 78), 
“moral circumstances” (11. 88-89), “accords” (1. 96), “bosom 
of the stream” (11. 105—106), “moral exercise” (1. 196)? 

(a) What words would a present-day writer probably 
use? 

(b) Discuss these words in connection with the somewhat 
old-fashioned tone of the selection. 

2. The following words and phrases can be used as a good 
exercise in the study of connotation and in choice of words 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 63 

for description: “blackened” (1. 9), “vanished” (1. 16), 
“lighted” (1. 18), “stood in order” (1. 28), “peeped” (1. 33), 
“commanded” (1. 35), “gleam forth” (1. 37), “sweep” 
(1. 45), “loitered” (1. 54), “idles” (1. 64), “slumbers” (1. 
70), “kissing” (1. 71), “bathes” (1. 72), “lurk” (1. 83), 
“sucks” (1. 86), “blustering” (1. 97), “hushes” (1. 98), 
“imaged” (1. 99), “glows downward” (1. 104), “float” 
(1. 105), “broods” (1. 109), “fertilized” (1. 139). 

(a) What is the literal meaning of each? 

(b) What is the connotation of each in this selection? 

(c) Note that each word is a verb-form. Note the ad¬ 
jectives used in the selection and discuss choice of 
words for description. 

3. Why does Hawthorne say “looked, or rather peeped” 
(11. 32-33)? 

4. The use of “snug” ( 1 . 4) to describe a nook is a kind 
of echo. So is “glimpses” ( 1 . 34), an echo of “peeped” 
(1. 33). 

(a) Explain the relationship of each pair. 

(b) Point out other examples of this echo effect, particu¬ 
larly in the description of the river. 

5. Comment on the connotations of “obscene” ( 1 . 86) and 
“noisome” (1. 86). 

6. Why “Assyrian dawn and Paphian sunset” ( 1 . 7) ? 

7. What is the relationship of “hitherto” ( 1 . 36) and 
“hither” (1. 43)? 

8. Distinguish, if you can, “attempered” ( 1 . 20) and “sub¬ 
serve” ( 1 . 64) from “temper” and “serve.” Can you detect 
other evidences of affectation in Hawthorne’s diction? 

9. Define, as used in this extract, “visages” ( 1 . 16), “waifs” 
(1. 27), “ingenuity” (1. 62), “torpor” (1. 68), “celestial” 
(1. 90), “firmament” (1. 102), “malign” (1. 107), “tawny” 
(1. no), “abutment” (1. 127), “obelisk” (1. 138), “pre¬ 
cincts” (1. 151), “impressible” (1. 188). 


64 


READING AND THINKING 


10. The phrases “looked strangely like” ( 1 . 12), “wrestled 
. . . with the devil” (11. 13-14), “into the light of history” 
(1. 37), “towards its eternity—the sea” (1. 55), “slave of 
human ingenuity” (11. 61-62), “a solitary spindle” (1. 66), 
“going forward” (1. 172), “fain know” (1. 193), and “long 
custom of war” (11. 199-200) involve either familiar figures 
of speech or idiomatic usages. Explain the meaning of each 
from that point of view. 

11. What, precisely, is the meaning of “tradition” ( 1 . 164) ? 
Contrast the meanings of legend, myth, story, and history. 

12. “The story has something deeply impressive, though its 
circumstances cannot altogether be reconciled with prob¬ 
ability” ( 11 . 165-167). State this idea as directly and 
simply as possible. 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The selection might be called a footnote to history. 
Explain. 

2. Summarize in a word or phrase each of the nine para¬ 
graphs. 

3. Point out the transitions between paragraphs. 

4. With the phrase “the light of history” ( 1 . 37) Haw¬ 
thorne first introduces the chief topic of the selection. Point 
out phrases in the succeeding paragraphs which keep this 
topic in mind. 

5. The details of the selection center on four distinct phys¬ 
ical positions, involve four points of view. What are they 
and how does Hawthorne take the reader from each one to 
the next? 

6. List in double columns the words and phrases which 
develop the contrast by which the cheerfulness of the study 
is emphasized. 

7. Comment upon the effectiveness of alluding to another, 
former occupant of the study in describing the view from the 
windows. 


NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 65 

8. List in order of presentation the details of the interior 
of the study. 

9. What details are omitted? Comment on Hawthorne’s 
choice. 

10. How does the reference to Emerson help to describe 
the study? 

11. List in order the details of the description of the river 
in the third paragraph. 

12. Point out details in the fifth paragraph which contrast 
with those in the third. 

13. What details are chosen to suggest the scene in the 
sixth paragraph? What is the effect or tone? 

14. Why is the modesty of the battlefield monument “be¬ 
fitting” ? 

15. What is the effect of specifying the names of the men 
who buried the two British soldiers? 

16. Why is Hawthorne so anxious to account for the ac¬ 
tions of the lad who killed the Britisher? Is he convincing? 

17. What thoughts about war are implied or expressed in 
the ninth paragraph? 

18. For readers who like a “moral,” this selection has 
more than enough. The stress on a moral, combined with 
certain words (compare the first question under WORDS), 
perhaps accounts for its old-fashioned tone. Moral reflec¬ 
tions are here occasioned by (1) the indolence of the river, 
(2) the two kinds of water lily, (3) the river at sunset, and 
(4) the lad with the axe. 

(a) Explain as well as you can the idea in each. 

(b) Discuss the comparative value for us at the present 
time of these reflections. 

(c) Comment on the logic of “and, being taught us every¬ 
where, it must be true” (11. 115—116). 

19. Compare the narrative of the killing of the British 
soldier with Macaulay’s account of the execution of Mon¬ 
mouth. 


66 


READING AND THINKING 


20. What is the “my design” of the opening sentence? 
What phrase at the end of the paragraph refers to it? 


SUGGESTED WORK 

1. Compare the ideas about Nature here presented with 
Royce’s discussion (see p. 224) of the World Spirit. 

2. Read Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey, Shelley’s The 
Cloud and Ode to the West Wind, and Bryant’s The 
Fringed Gentian and To a Waterfowl , and compare the 
ideas expressed in them about Nature with Hawthorne’s. 

3. Read Emerson’s Concord Hymn and compare with 
Hawthorne’s description. (Emerson wrote his poem in 1837 
and Hawthorne his description in 1845—as he says, three 
score years and ten after the battle.) 


ERNEST HEMINGWAY 


Ernest Hemingway (1898- ) was born in Oak Park, 

Illinois, and was educated in the public schools there. He 
took up journalism, was in the World War, and lived in 
Paris, a member of the post-war intellectual group centering 
around Gertrude Stein. Reputation came with a novel, The 
Su n Also R ises, and fame with short stories ( Men witho ut 
Women) and the novel Farewell to Arms. Hemingway is 
an ardent sportsman and a somewhat legendary “toughguy.” 
He has long had an enthusiasm fo r Spai ng—he has spent much 
time there during the current civil.Avar* One result of his 


interest in Spain is an elaborate study of bullfighting, Death 
itLWkr'Afternoon, from which the following selection is 
taken.* 


i. So I went to Spain to see bullfights and to try to 
write about them for myself. I thought they would 
be simple and barbarous and cruel and that I would 
not like them, but that I would see certain definite 
action which would give me the feeling of life and 5 
death that I was working for. I found the definite 
action; but the bullfight was so far from simple and 
I liked it so much that it was much too complicated 
for my then equipment for writing to deal with and, 
aside from four very short sketches, I was not able 10 
to write anything about it for five years—and I wish 
I would have waited ten. However, if I had waited 
long enough I probably never would have written 
anything at all since there is a tendency when you 

^Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. 






68 


READING AND THINKING 


15 really begin to learn something about a thing not to 
want to write about it but rather to keep on learning 
about it always and at no time, unless you are very 
egotistical, which, of course, accounts for many 
books, will you be able to say: now I know all about 
20 this and will write about it. Certainly I do not say 
that now; every year I know there is more to learn, 
but I know some things which may be interesting 
now, and I may be away from the bullfights for a 
long time and I might as well write what I know 
25 about them now. Also it might be good to have a 
book about bullfighting in English and a serious book 
on such an unmoral subject may have some value. 

2 . So far, about morals, I know only that what is 
moral is what you feel good after and what is im- 
30 moral is what you feel bad after and judged by these 
moral standards, which I do not defend, the bullfight 
is very moral to me because I feel very fine while it 
is going on and have a feeling of life and death and 
mortality and immortality, and after it is over I feel 
35 very sad but very fine. Also, I do not mind the 
horses; not in principle, but in fact I do not mind 
them. I was very surprised at this since I cannot 
see a horse down in the street without having it make 
me feel a necessity for helping the horse, and I have 
40 spread sacking, unbuckled harness and dodged shod 
hoofs many times and will again if they have horses 
on city streets in wet and icy weather, but in the bull 
ring I do not feel any horror or disgust whatever at 
what happens to the horses. I have taken many 
45 people, both men and women, to bullfights and have 
seen their reactions to the death and goring of horses 
in the ring and their reactions are quite unpredictable. 
Women that I felt sure would enjoy the bullfights 


ERNEST HEMINGWAY 


69 


with the exception of the goring of the horses were 
quite unaffected by it; I mean really unaffected, that 
is, something that they disapproved of and that they 
expected would horrify and disgust them did not dis¬ 
gust them or horrify them at all. Other people, 
both men and women, were so affected that they were 
made physically ill. I will go into the way some of 
these people acted in detail later but let me say now 
that there was no difference, or line of difference, so 
that these people could be divided by any standard 
of civilization or experience into those that were 
affected and those that were not affected. 

3. From observation I would say that people may 
possibly be divided into two general groups; those 
who, to use one of the terms of the jargon of psy¬ 
chology, identify themselves with, that is, place them¬ 
selves in the position of, animals, and those who 
identify themselves with human beings. I believe, 
after experience and observation, that those people 
who identify themselves with animals, that is, the 
almost professional lovers of dogs, and other beasts, 
are capable of greater cruelty to human beings than 
those who do not identify themselves readily with 
animals. It seems as though there were a funda¬ 
mental cleavage between people on this basis al¬ 
though people who do not identify themselves with 
animals may, while not loving animals in general, be 
capable of great affection for an individual animal, 
a dog, a cat, or a horse for instance. But they will 
base this affection on some quality of, or some asso¬ 
ciation with, this individual animal rather than on 
the fact that it is an animal and hence worthy of 
love. For myself, I have felt profound affection for 
three different cats, four dogs, that I remember, and 


50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 

80 


70 


READING AND THINKING 


only two horses; that is horses that I have owned, 
ridden or driven. As for horses that I have fol- 
85 lowed, watched race and bet on I have had profound 
admiration and, when I had bet money on them, 
almost affection for a number of these animals; the 
ones that I remember best being Man of War, Ex¬ 
terminator, I believe I honestly had affection for him, 
9oEpinard, Kzar, Heros XII, Master Bob, and a half- 
bred horse, a steeplechaser like the last two, named 
Uncas. I had great, great admiration for all of 
those animals, but how much of my affection was due 
to the sums staked I do not know. Uncas, when he 
95 won a classic steeplechase race at Auteuil at odds of 
better than ten to one, carrying my money on him, I 
felt profound affection for. But if you should ask 
me what eventually happened to this animal that I 
was so fond of that Evan Shipman and I were nearly 
ioo moved to tears when speaking of the noble beast, I 
would have to answer that I do not know. I do 
know that I do not love dogs as dogs, horses as 
horses, or cats as cats. 

4. The question of why the death of the horse in 
105 the bull ring is not moving, not moving to some peo¬ 
ple that is, is complicated; but the fundamental 
reason may be that the death of the horse tends to 
be comic while that of the bull is tragic. In the 
tragedy of the bullfight the horse is the comic char- 
110 acter. This may be shocking, but it is true. There¬ 
fore the worse the horses are, provided they are high 
enough off the ground and solid enough so that the 
picador can perform his mission with the spiked pole, 
or vara, the more they are a comic element. You 
115 should be horrified and disgusted at these parodies 
of horses and what happens to them, but there is no 


ERNEST HEMINGWAY 


71 


way to be sure that you will be unless you make up 
your mind to be, no matter what your feelings. 
They are so unlike horses; in some ways they are 
like birds, any of the awkward birds such as the 
adjutants or the wide-billed storks, and when, lifted 
by the thrust of the bull’s neck and shoulder muscles 
their legs hang, big hoofs dangling, neck drooping, 
the worn-out body lifted on the horn, they are not 
comic; but I swear they are not tragic. The tragedy 
is all centered in the bull and in the man. The tragic 
climax of the horse’s career has occurred off stage 
at an earlier time; when he was bought by the horse 
contractor for use in the bull ring. The end in the 
ring, somehow, seems not unfitting to the structure 
of the animal and when the canvases are stretched 
over the horses, the long legs, and necks, the strange¬ 
shaped heads and the canvas covering the body to 
make a sort of wing, they are more like birds than 
ever. They look a little as a dead pelican does. A 
live pelican is an interesting, amusing, and sympa¬ 
thetic bird, though if you handle him he will give 
you lice; but a dead pelican looks very silly. 

5. This is not being written as an apology for bull¬ 
fights, but to try to present the bullfight integrally, 
and to do this a number of things must be admitted 
which an apologist, making a case, would slide over 
or avoid. The comic that happens to these horses 
is not their death then; death is not comic, and gives 
a temporary dignity to the most comic characters, 
although this dignity passes once death has occurred; 
but the strange and burlesque visceral accidents which 
occur. There is certainly nothing comic by our 
standards in seeing an animal emptied of its visceral 
content, but if this animal instead of doing some- 


120 

125 

130 

135 

140 

145 

150 


72 


READING AND THINKING 


thing tragic, that is, dignified, gallops in a stiff old- 
maidish fashion around a ring trailing the opposite 
of clouds of glory it is as comic when what it is trail¬ 
ing is real as when the Fratellinis give a burlesque of 
155 it in which the viscera are represented by rolls of 
bandages, sausages and other things. If one is 
comic the other is; the humor comes from the same 
principle. I have seen it, people running, horse 
emptying, one dignity after another being destroyed 
160 in the spattering, and trailing of its innermost values, 
in a complete burlesque of tragedy. I have seen 
these, call them disembowellings, that is the worst 
word, when, due to their timing, they were very 
funny. This is the sort of thing you should not 
165 admit, but it is because such things have not been 
admitted that the bullfight has never been explained. 

6 . These visceral accidents, as I write this, are no 
longer a part of the Spanish bullfight, as under the 
government of Primo de Rivera it was decided to 
170 protect the abdomens of the horses with a sort of 
quilted mattress designed in the terms of the decree 
“to avoid those horrible sights which so disgust for¬ 
eigners and tourists.” These protectors avoid these 
sights and greatly decrease the number of horses 
175 killed in the bull ring, but they in no way decrease the 
pain suffered by the horses; they take away much of 
the bravery from the bull, this to be dealt with in a 
later chapter, and they are the first step toward the 
suppression of the bullfight. The bullfight is a 
iso Spanish institution; it has not existed because of the 
foreigners and tourists, but always in spite of them 
and any step to modify it to secure their approval, 
which it will never have, is a step towards its com¬ 
plete suppression. 


ERNEST HEMINGWAY 


73 


7. This that has been written about one person’s 
reaction to the horses in the bull ring is not put in 
because of a desire of the author to write about him¬ 
self and his own reactions, considering them as im¬ 
portant and taking delight in them because they are 
his, but rather to establish the fact that the reactions 
were instant and unexpected. I did not become in¬ 
different to the fate of the horses through the cal¬ 
lousness of seeing a thing many times so that the 
emotions are no longer touched. It was not a mat¬ 
ter of the emotions becoming insulated through 
familiarity. However I feel about the horses emo¬ 
tionally, I felt the first time I saw a bullfight. It 
might be argued that I had become callous through 
having observed war, or through journalism, but 
this would not explain other people who had never 
seen war, nor, literally, physical horror of any sort, 
nor ever even worked on, say, a morning newspaper, 
having exactly the same reactions. 

WORDS 

1. What is the meaning of “barbarous” ( 1 . 3)? Com¬ 
pare “barbaric.” 

2. Define “egotistical” ( 1 . 18). Distinguish between an 
“egotist” and an “egoist.” 

3. Distinguish the meanings of “unmoral” ( 1 . 27), “moral” 
( 1 . 29), and “immoral” ( 11 . 29-30). Look up also “amoral.” 

4. In the second paragraph of the extract Hemingway 
gives his definition of “moral.” Does it agree with yours 
and that found in the dictionary? 

5. Define “affected” ( 1 . 54). 

(a) Explain the meanings of the related words “affec¬ 
tions” and “affectionate.” 

(b) Distinguish in meaning “affect” and “effect.” 


185 

190 

195 

200 


74 


READING AND THINKING 


6 . What is the historical relationship between “cleavage” 
(1. 73) and “cliff”? 

7. What is a “half-bred horse” ( 11 . 90-91) ? 

8. “Comic” and “tragic” ( 1 . 108) are used here in the 
technical dramatic sense. Be sure you understand their full 
implications. 

9. What are “parodies” ( 1 . 115) ? 

10. Define “burlesque” ( 1 . 154). Compare “mock-heroic.” 

11. Define, as used here, “shod” ( 1 . 40), “jargon” ( 1 . 63), 
“classic” (1. 95), “sympathetic” (11. 136-137), “integrally” 
(1. 140), “apologist” (1. 142), “visceral” (1. 149), “callous¬ 
ness” (11. 192-193). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. What is Hemingway’s topic in this extract? 

2. What is the topic of the first paragraph? Is it unified? 
Pertinent? 

3. Give a brief title to each succeeding paragraph. 

4. What is the key sentence of the fourth paragraph? 

5. How is the fifth paragraph linked to the fourth? 

6. To what does “this” refer in lines HO, 139, 141, 164, 
1 77, 185, and 200, respectively? 

7. Point out three passages in which Hemingway turns 
from his subject to discuss his writing problems or to justify 
his technique. Discuss this practice. 

8. Hemingway is no precisian. Criticize (that is, pass a 
considered judgment upon) the following expressions: 

(a) “my then equipment” ( 1 . 9). What part of speech 
is “then”? 

(b) “I wish I would have waited ten” (11. 11—12). 
Consider the mood and tense of “would have waited.” 

(c) “which, of course, accounts for many books” (11. 18— 
19). What is the antecedent of “which”? 

(d) “due to their timing, they were very funny.” (11. 163- 
164). 


ERNEST HEMINGWAY 


75 


(e) “explain other people . . . having exactly the same 
reactions” ( 11 . 200-203). Remember the rule about 
the possessive with the gerund. 

9. “As for horses that . . . named Uncas” ( 11 . 84-92). 
Analyze this sentence from the third paragraph and explain 
the syntax of the clause “I believe I honestly had affection 
for him.” 

10. Distinguish loose and periodic sentences. Count the 
number of each in this extract. Compare Macaulay (see 
p. 42). 

11. Comment upon the effectiveness of the allusion to the 
pelican in the fourth paragraph. Why refer to lice? 

12. Explain Hemingway’s purpose in putting in the qualify¬ 
ing clause “which I do not defend” (1. 31). 

13. Explain the contrast between “principle” and “fact” 

(1. 36 ). 

14. Summarize the characteristics of the “two general 
groups” (1. 62). 

15. Explain the sentence “I do know that I do not love 
dogs as dogs, horses as horses, or cats as cats” (11. 101-103) 
and comment upon the special use of the word as which is 
illustrated. 

16. Point out details to show what Hemingway means by 
“comic” and “tragic” ( 1 . 108). Compare question 8 under 

WORDS. 

17. What does Hemingway mean in saying that his pur¬ 
pose is “to try to present the bullfight integrally” (1. 140) ? 

18. How would you proceed to find out about the Fra- 
tellinis (1. 154) ? 


JOHN BURROUGHS 


John Burroughs (1837-1921) was born at Beaver Dam, 
now Roxbury, Delaware County, New York. At seventeen, 
like many mid-nineteenth century American boys, he was 
teaching school, and studying, when he could, at Ashland 
Collegiate Institute and Cooperstown Seminary. At twenty 
he married and announced to his bride, “If I live, I shall be 
an author.” Like Thoreau he had an enthusiasm for nature 
study and his native scene. But several years of occasional 
writing, teaching, and a clerkship in the Treasury Depart¬ 
ment at Washington (where he was a friend of Walt Whit¬ 
man) intervened before Burroughs could settle on a farm at 
Esopus, near his birthplace, and devote himself to nature 
study and writing. He published a long series of nature 
studies and semi-philosophical works. In later life he was 
something of a public hero as sage and philosopher and as a 
great friend of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. Ap¬ 
parently, his lasting reputation will be as a nature writer, a 
reputation founded by Wake-Robin, from which the follow¬ 
ing is taken.* 


I. Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown 
partridges start up like an explosion, a few paces 
from me, and, scattering, disappear in the bushes on 
all sides. Let me sit down here behind the screen 
5 of ferns and briers, and hear this wild hen of the 
woods call together her brood. At what an early 
age the partridge flies! Nature seems to concen¬ 
trate her energies on the wing, making the safety of 

*This selection from John Burroughs is used by permission of, 
and arrangement with the publishers, Houghton Mifflin Company. 

76 




JOHN BURROUGHS 77 

the bird a point to be looked after first; and while 
the body is covered with down, and no signs of 
feathers are visible, the wing quills sprout and un¬ 
fold, and in an incredibly short time the young make 
fair headway in flying. 

2. The same rapid development of wing may be 
observed in chickens and turkeys, but not in water- 
fowls, nor in birds that are safely housed in the nest 
till full-fledged. The other day, by a brook, I came 
suddenly upon a young sandpiper, a most beautiful 
creature, enveloped in a soft gray down, swift and 
nimble and apparently a week or two old, but with no 
signs of plumage either of body or wing. And it 
needed none, for it escaped me by taking to the water 
as readily as if it had flown with wings. 

3. Hark! there arises over there in the brush a 
soft, persuasive cooing, a sound so subtle and wild 
and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and 
watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous 
and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the 
mother hen. Presently a faint timid “Yeap !” which 
almost eludes the ear, is heard in various directions, 
—the young responding. As no danger seems near, 
the cooing of the parent bird is soon a very audible 
clucking call, and the young move cautiously in the 
direction. Let me step never so carefully from my 
hiding-place, and all sounds instantly cease, and I 
search in vain for either parent or young. 

4. The partridge (Bonasa umbellus) is one of our 
most native and characteristic birds. The woods 
seem good to be in where I find him. He gives a 
habitable air to the forest, and one feels as if the 
rightful occupant was really at home. The woods 
where I do not find him seem to want something, as 


10 

15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 


78 


READING AND THINKING 


if suffering from some neglect of Nature. And 
then he is such a splendid success, so hardy and vigor- 
45 ous. I think he enjoys the cold and the snow. His 
wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwin¬ 
ter. If the snow falls very fast, and promises a 
heavy storm, he will complacently sit down and allow 
himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at 
50 such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your 
feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes 
humming away through the woods like a bomb-shell 
—a picture of native spirit and success. 

5. His drum is one of the most welcome and beau- 
55 tiful sounds of spring. Scarcely have the trees ex¬ 
panded their buds, when, in the still April mornings, 
or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted 
wings. He selects not, as you would predict, a dry 
and resinous log, but a decayed and crumbling one, 
60 seeming to give the preference to old oak logs that 
are partly blended with the soil. If a log to his 
taste cannot be found he sets up his altar on a rock, 
which becomes resonant beneath his fervent blows. 
Who has seen the partridge drum? It is the next 
65 thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much 
caution and tact it may be done. He does not hug 
the log, but stands very erect, expands his ruff, gives 
two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and 
then resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound 
70 becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole last¬ 
ing less than half a minute. The tips of his wings 
barely brush the log, so that the sound is produced 
rather by the force of the blows upon the air and 
upon his own body as in flying. One log will be 
75 used for many years, though not by the same drum¬ 
mer. It seems to be a sort of temple and held in 


JOHN BURROUGHS 79 

great respect. The bird always approaches on foot, 
and leaves it in the same quiet manner, unless rudely 
disturbed. He is very cunning, though his wit is not 
profound. It is difficult to approach him by stealth; so 
you will try many times before succeeding; but seem 
to pass by him in a great hurry, making all the noise 
possible, and with plumage furled he stands as im¬ 
movable as a knot, allowing you a good view and a 
good shot, if you are a sportsman. 85 

WORDS 

1. Look up the etymology of each of the following words 
and explain as well as you can how each word came to be 
used: “partridges” (1. 2), “chickens” (1. 15), “turkeys” 

(1. 15), “sandpiper” (1. 18). 

2. Find from what language each of the following words 
came: ‘‘brood” (1. 1), “wing” (1. 8), “bird” (1. 9), “down” 

(1. 10), “feathers” (1. il), “quills” (1. 11), “fowls” (1. 16), 
“nest” (1. 16), “plumage” (1. 21), “body” (1. 21), “hen” 

(1. 29), “parent” (1. 32), “young” (1. 33). 

3. What is the full meaning of “native” ( 1 . 38)? Look 
up its etymology. 

4. List several words developed from the same root as 
“audible” (1. 32). 

5. What is the force of “devoted wings” ( 11 . 57-58) ? 

6. “Make fair headway” ( 11 . 12-13) and “with plumage 
furled” ( 1 . 83) are figurative expressions. What is the 
source of each? 

7. What is the special meaning of “success” in lines 44 and 
53 ? 

8. What is the meaning here of “nimble” ( 1 . 20), “subtle” 

(1. 25), “watchful” (1. 27), “solicitous” (1. 27), “habitable” 

(1. 40), “fervency” (1. 46), “complacently” (1. 48), “resin¬ 
ous” ( 1 . 59), “resonant” ( 1 . 63), “tact” ( 1 . 66 ), “ruff” 

(1. 67), “cunning” (1. 79) ? 


80 


READING AND THINKING 


9. What is the difference between “hardy” and “vigorous” 
(11. 44-45) ? Note the etymology of each. 

10. Comment on the syntax of “approaching” (1. 49). 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The topic sentence of the whole selection is the first 
sentence in the fourth paragraph. 

(a) What, then, is the purpose of the three preceding para¬ 
graphs ? 

(b) Are the first three paragraphs important for style or 
for information? 

2. List the concrete facts about the partridge which appear 
at various places in the selection. 

(a) Is the result a picture or an interpretation? 

(b) What plan or order do the facts follow? 

3. Roint out the transitions between paragraphs. 

4. “Hear this wild hen of the woods call together her 
brood” (11. 5-6). When does Burroughs return to this idea? 

5. Justify the inclusion of the intervening passage. 

6. How does the reference to the sandpiper support the 
topic of the second paragraph? 

7. The second paragraph seems at first to be an exception. 
But what does the last sentence of this paragraph suggest? 

8. State in five words the topic of the fourth paragraph. 

9. What word seems to give unity to the paragraph ? 

10. Does the last sentence destroy the unity of the fifth 
paragraph ? 

11. Try to show how Burroughs makes his description of 
drumming vivid. 

12. Count the exclamation points in the first three para¬ 
graphs. What is the effect of such a stylistic device? 

13. “Like an explosion” (1. 2). Where is this comparison 
repeated ? 


JOHN BURROUGHS 81 

14. “His devoted wings” ( 11 . 57-58). Point out how the 
connotation of “devoted” is carried through the rest of the 
paragraph. 

15. Why would you predict “a dry and resinous log” 

( 11 . 58 - 59 )? 

16. What supports the statement “his wit is not profound” 
( 11 . 79 - 80 ) ? 

17. Why is a “knot” ( 1 . 84) an inevitable comparison? 

18. It is difficult to avoid sentimentality about Nature, 
especially in speaking of animals or birds as if they were 
human beings. Point out how Burroughs makes it clear that 
he knows that he is speaking of a bird and not a human 
being. 


SUGGESTED WORK 

Compare the attitude toward Nature here with that of 
Hawthorne (see pp. 58-59). 


FRANCIS PARKMAN 


Francis Parkman (1823-1893) was born in Boston and 
was educated at Harvard. Like Dana he broke down in 
the middle of his course, the cause being over-exertion in 
the gymnasium induced by his enthusiasm for camping, hunt¬ 
ing, wild life, and Indians. A European tour restored his 
health and he returned and graduated with his class. After 
some desultory study of law and writing, Parkman set off in 
1846 on a long-projected trip to explore the Oregon Trail 
and to study Indian life. He returned a complete physical 
wreck and throughout his life suffered from bad eyesight, 
mental lapses, and nerves. Nevertheless, he wrote his famous 
account of his trip, The Oregon Trail , and a long series of 
histories of the French, Indians, and English in Canada and 
western America. In style and method he much resembles 
Macaulay. The following extract is from his first history, 
The Conspiracy of Pontiac * 


i. The country of the Illinois was chiefly em¬ 
braced within the boundaries of the state which now 
retains the name. Thitherward, from the east, the 
west, and the north, three mighty rivers rolled their 
5tributary waters; while countless smaller streams— 
small only in comparison—traversed the land with a 
watery network, impregnating the warm soil with 
exuberant fecundity. From the eastward, the Ohio 
—La Belle Riviere—pursued its windings for more 
10 than a thousand miles. The Mississippi descended 
from the distant north; while from its fountains in 

^Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown & Company. 

82 




FRANCIS PARKMAN 


83 


the west, three thousand miles away, the Missouri 
poured its torrent towards the same common center. 
Born among mountains, trackless even now, except 
by the adventurous footstep of the trapper,—nur¬ 
tured amid the howling of beasts and the war cries 
of savages, never silent in that wilderness,—it holds 
its angry course through sun-scorched deserts, among 
towers and palaces, the architecture of no human 
hand, among lodges of barbarian hordes, and herds 
of bison blackening the prairie to the horizon. 
Fierce, reckless, headstrong, exulting in its tumultu¬ 
ous force, it plays a thousand freaks of wanton 
power; bearing away forests from its shores, and 
planting them, with roots uppermost, in its quick¬ 
sands; sweeping off islands, and rebuilding them; 
frothing and raging in foam and whirlpool, and, 
again, gliding with dwindled current along its sandy 
channel. At length, dark with uncurbed fury, it 
pours its muddy tide into the reluctant Mississippi. 
That majestic river, drawing life from the pure 
fountains of the north, wandering among emerald 
prairies and wood-crowned bluffs, loses all its earlier 
charm with this unhallowed union. At first, it 
shrinks as with repugnance; and along the same 
channel the two streams flow side by side, with un¬ 
mingled waters. But the disturbing power prevails 
at length; and the united torrent bears onward in its 
might, boiling up from the bottom, whirling in many 
a vortex, flooding its shores with a malign deluge 
fraught with pestilence and fever, and burying for¬ 
ests in its depths, to insnare the heedless voyager. 
Mightiest among rivers, it is the connecting link of 
adverse climates and contrasted races; and, while at 
its northern source the fur-clad Indian shivers in the 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


8+ 


READING AND THINKING 


cold, where it mingles with the ocean, the growth of 
the tropics springs along its banks, and the panting 
negro cools his limbs in its refreshing waters. 

2. To these great rivers and their tributary 
50 streams the country of the Illinois owed its wealth, 

its grassy prairies, and the stately woods that flour¬ 
ished on its deep, rich soil. This prolific land 
teemed with life. It was a hunter’s paradise. Deer 
grazed on its meadows. The elk trooped in herds, 
55 like squadrons of cavalry. In the still morning, one 
might hear the clatter of their antlers for half a mile 
over the dewy prairie. Countless bison roamed 
the plains, filing in grave procession to drink at the 
rivers, plunging and snorting among the rapids and 
60 quicksands, rolling their huge bulk on the grass, 
rushing upon each other in hot encounter, like cham¬ 
pions under shield. The wildcat glared from the 
thicket; the racoon thrust his furry countenance from 
the hollow tree, and the opossum swung, head down- 
65 wards, from the overhanging bough. 

3. With the opening spring, when the forests are 
budding into leaf, and the prairies gemmed with 
flowers; when a warm, faint haze rests upon the 
landscape,—then heart and senses are inthralled with 

70 luxurious beauty. The shrubs and wild fruit trees, 
flushed with pale red blossoms, and the small cluster¬ 
ing flowers of grape-vines, which choke the gigantic 
trees with Laocoon writhings, fill the forest with 
their rich perfume. A few days later, and a cloud 
75 of verdure overshadows the land; while birds in¬ 
numerable sing beneath its canopy, and brighten its 
shades with their glancing hues. 

4. Yet this western paradise is not free from the 
primal curse. The beneficent sun, which kindles into 


FRANCIS PARKMAN 85 

life so many forms of loveliness and beauty, fails 
not to engender venom and death from the rank slime 
of pestilential swamp and marsh. In some stag¬ 
nant pool, buried in the jungle-like depths of the for¬ 
est, where the hot and lifeless water reeks with ex¬ 
halations, the water snake basks by the margin, or 
winds his checkered length of loathsome beauty 
across the sleepy surface. From beneath the rotten 
carcass of some fallen tree, the moccasin thrusts out 
his broad flat head, ready to dart on the intruder. 
On the dry, sun-scorched prairie, the rattlesnake, a 
more generous enemy, reposes in his spiral coil. He 
scorns to shun the eye of day, as if conscious of the 
honor accorded to his name by the warlike race, who, 
jointly with him, claim lordship over the land. But 
some intrusive footstep awakes him from his slum¬ 
bers. His neck is arched; the white fangs gleam in 
his distended jaws; his small eyes dart rays of unut¬ 
terable fierceness; and his rattles, invisible with their 
quick vibration, ring the sharp warning which no 
man will dare to contemn. 


WORDS 

1. Define “tributary” ( 1 . 5). Explain the related mean¬ 
ings of “tribute,” “attribute,” and “distribute.” 

2. Define “fecundity” ( 1 . 8). What is the meaning of the 
suffix ityf 

3. What is “Wanton power” ( 11 . 23-24) ? In what other 
senses may the word “wanton” be used? 

4. Define “unhallowed” ( 1 . 34). What is its etymologi¬ 
cal relation to “holy” ? 

5. List other words formed with the prefix of “malign” 
( 1 - 40 ). 


80 

85 

90 

95 

100 


86 


READING AND THINKING 


6. Distinguish “luxurious’’ ( 1 . 70) and “luxuriant.” 

7. Distinguish “contemn” ( 1 . 100) and “condemn.” 

8. Define, as used in the extract, the following: “impreg¬ 
nating” (1. 7), “exuberant” (1. 8), “nurtured” (11. 15-16), 
“repugnance” (1. 35), “vortex” (1. 40), “prolific” (1. 52), 
“teemed” (1. 53), “engender” (1. 81), “pestilential” (1. 82), 
“intrusive” (1. 95). 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. This description as a whole is effected by contrast. Ex¬ 
plain. Indicate the extent of the contrasting sections. In¬ 
dicate comparisons within the selection. 

2. Condense to one noun the topic of each paragraph. 

3. Parkman’s style may be called lush, florid, or flam¬ 
boyant. Explain. 

4. Rephrase as simply and prosaically as possible the ideas 
of the following expressions: “three mighty rivers rolled their 
tributary waters” (11. 4-5), “traversed the land with a 
watery network” (11. 6—7), “impregnating the warm soil with 
exuberant fecundity” (11. 7—8). 

5. List ten or twelve additional examples of floridity of 
style and comment upon their effectiveness. 

6. List all the adjectives in the first paragraph and under¬ 
score those having strong emotional connotation. What do 
you conclude about florid diction? 

7. Point out two similes in the second paragraph. Ex¬ 
plain fully the second one. 

8. What are “Laocoon writhings” ( 1 . 73)? 

9. What is the “primal curse” ( 1 . 79) ? 

IO. What are the connotations, implied or suggested in the 
text, of the following phrases: “watery network” (1. 7), 
“exuberant fecundity” (1. 8), “adventurous footstep” (1. 15), 
“angry course” ( 1 . 18), “reluctant Mississippi” ( 1 . 30), “un¬ 
hallowed union” (1. 34), “grave procession” (1. 58), “loath¬ 
some beauty” (1. 86), “more generous enemy” (1. 91) ? 


FRANCIS PARKMAN 


87 


11. What characteristics in common have the following 
phrases: “engender venom” (1. 81), “rank slime” (1. 81), 
“pestilential swamp” (1. 82), “stagnant pool” (11. 82-83), 
“rotten carcass” (11. 87-88), “sun-scorched prairie” (1. 90) ? 

12. Discuss the suitability of Parkman’s style in relation to 
his subject matter. 


SUGGESTED WORK 

1. Compare the number of adjectives in the first paragraph 
with the number in a passage of equal extent from Haldane 
(see p. 148), Royce (see p. 222), or Irving (see p. 132). 

2. Compare the attitude toward Nature here with that in 
Burroughs (see p. 76) and Hawthorne (see p. 56). 

3. Look up the “pathetic fallacy” and see whether any 
examples of it are to be found here. 


ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 


Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) was thoroughly 
Scotch in ancestry but with a strain, perhaps French, that 
made him preacher and Bohemian at once. Throughout his 
life he was the victim of ill health, but he finished a course 
in law at Edinburgh University, traveled much, and pro¬ 
duced many volumes of verse, essays, and fiction. His gay- 
ety of manner and persuasiveness of style and his romantic 
last years in the South Seas made him a legend even while he 
still lived. His success as a writer was tremendous. In 
1879 Stevenson came to America and California to visit the 
woman who later became his wife. Ill health and poverty 
forced them, after the marriage, to go to the California 
mountains. Stevenson’s account of the sojourn is The Sil¬ 
verado Squatters, from which the following extract is taken.* 


1. It is difficult for a European to imagine Calis- 
toga, the whole place is so new, and of such an 
occidental pattern; the very name, I hear, was in¬ 
vented at a supper-party by the man who found the 

5 springs. 

2. The railroad and the highway come up the 
valley about parallel to one another. The street of 
Calistoga joins them, perpendicular to both—a wide 
street, with bright, clean, low houses, here and there 

10 a veranda over the sidewalk, here and there a horse- 
post, here and there lounging townsfolk. Other 
streets are marked out, and most likely named; for 
these towns in the New World begin with a firm re- 


*Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. 




ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 89 

solve to grow larger, Washington and Broadway, 
and then First and Second, and so forth, being boldly 15 
plotted out as soon as the community indulges in a 
plan. But, in the meanwhile, all the life and most 
of the houses of Calistoga are concentrated upon 
that street between the railway station and the road. 

I never heard it called by any name, but I will hazard 20 
a guess that it is either Washington or Broadway. 
Here are the blacksmith’s, the chemist’s, the general 
merchant’s, and Kong Sam Kee, the Chinese laun- 
dryman’s; here, probably, is the office of the local 
paper (for the place has a paper—they all have 25 
papers) ; and here certainly is one of the hotels, 
Cheeseborough’s, whence the daring Foss, a man 
dear to legend, starts his horses for the Geysers. 

3. It must be remembered that we are here in a 
land of stagedrivers and highwaymen: a land, in 30 
that sense, like England a hundred years ago. The 
highway robber—road-agent, he is quaintly called— 
is still busy in these parts. The fame of Vasquez is 
still young. Only a few years ago, the Lakeport 
stage was robbed a mile or two from Calistoga. In 35 
1879, the dentist of Mendocino City, fifty miles 
away upon the coast, suddenly threw off the gar¬ 
ments of his trade, like Grindoff in The Miller and 
his Men, and flamed forth in his second dress as a 
captain of banditti. A great robbery was followed 40 
by a long chase, a chase of days if not of weeks, 
among the intricate hill-country; and the chase was 
followed by much desultory fighting, in which sev¬ 
eral—and the dentist, I believe, amongst the number 
—bit the dust. The grass was springing for the first 45 
time, nourished upon their blood, when I arrived in 
Calistoga. I am reminded of another highwayman 


90 


READING AND THINKING 


of that same year. “He had been unwell,” so ran 
his humorous defense, “and the doctor told him to 
50 take something, so he took the express-box.” 

4. The cultus of the stage-coachman always 
flourishes highest where there are thieves on the road, 
and where the guard travels armed, and the stage is 
not only a link between country and city, and the 

55 vehicle of news, but has a faint warfaring aroma, 
like a man who should be brother to a soldier. Cali¬ 
fornia boasts her famous stage-drivers, and among 
the famous Foss is not forgotten. Along the un¬ 
fenced, abominable mountain roads, he launches his 
60 team with small regard to human life or the doctrine 
of probabilities. Flinching travelers, who behold 
themselves coasting eternity at every corner, look 
with natural admiration at their driver’s huge, im¬ 
passive, fleshy countenance. He has the very face 
65 for the driver in Sam Weller’s anecdote, who upset 
the election party at the required point. Wonder¬ 
ful tales are current of his readiness and skill. One 
in particular, of how one of his horses fell at a 
ticklish passage of the road, and how Foss let slip 
70 the reins, and, driving over the fallen animal, ar¬ 
rived at the next stage with only three. This I re¬ 
late as I heard it, without guarantee. 

5. I only saw Foss once, though, strange as it 
may sound, I have twice talked with him. He lives 

75 out of Calistoga, at a ranch called Fossville. One 
evening, after he was long gone home, I dropped 
into Cheeseborough’s, and was asked if I should like 
to speak with Mr. Foss. Supposing that the inter¬ 
view was impossible, and that I was merely called 
so upon to subscribe the general sentiment, I boldly an¬ 
swered “Yes.” Next moment, I had one instrument 


ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 91 

at my ear, another at my mouth, and found myself, 
with nothing in the world to say, conversing with a 
man several miles off among desolate hills. Foss 
rapidly and somewhat plaintively brought the con¬ 
versation to an end; and he returned to his night’s 
grog at Fossville, while I strolled forth again on 
Calistoga high street. But it was an odd thing that 
here, on what we are accustomed to consider the very 
skirts of civilization, I should have used the tele¬ 
phone for the first time in my civilized career. So 
it goes in these young countries; telephones, and tele¬ 
graphs, and newspapers, and advertisements run¬ 
ning far ahead among the Indians and the grizzly 
bears. 

6. Alone, on the other side of the railway, stands 
the Springs Hotel, with its attendant cottages. The 
floor of the valley is extremely level to the very roots 
of the hills; only here and there a hillock, crowned 
with pines, rises like the barrow of some chieftain 
famed in war; and right against one of these hil¬ 
locks is the Springs Hotel—is or was; for since I was 
there the place has been destroyed by fire, and has 
risen again from its ashes. A lawn runs about the 
house, and the lawn is in its turn surrounded by a sys¬ 
tem of little five-roomed cottages, each with a 
veranda and a weedy palm before the door. Some 
of the cottages are let to residents, and these are 
wreathed in flowers. The rest are occupied by ordi¬ 
nary visitors to the hotel; and a very pleasant way 
this is, by which you have a little country cottage of 
your own, without domestic burdens, and by the day 
or week. 

7. The whole neighborhood of Mount Saint 
Helena is full of sulphur and of boiling springs. 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 

115 


92 


READING AND THINKING 


The Geysers are famous; they were the great health 
resort of the Indians before the coming of the whites. 
Lake County is dotted with spas; Hot Springs and 
White Sulphur Springs are the names of two stations 
120 on the Napa Valley railroad; and Calistoga itself 
seems to repose on a mere film above a boiling, sub¬ 
terranean lake. At one end of the hotel enclosure 
are the springs from which it takes its name, hot 
enough to scald a child seriously while I was there. 
125 At the other end, the tenant of a cottage sank a well, 
and there also the water came up boiling. It keeps 
this end of the valley as warm as a toast. I have 
gone across to the hotel a little after five in the morn¬ 
ing, when a sea fog from the Pacific was hanging 
130 thick and grey, and dark and dirty overhead, and 
found the thermometer had been up before me, and 
had already climbed among the nineties; and in the 
stress of the day it was sometimes too hot to move 
about. 

135 8 . But in spite of this heat from above and below, 

doing one on both sides, Calistoga was a pleasant 
place to dwell in; beautifully green, for it was then 
that favored moment in the Californian year, when 
the rains are over and the dusty summer has not yet 
ho set in; often visited by fresh airs, now from the 
mountain, now across Sonoma from the sea; very 
quiet, very idle, very silent but for the breezes and 
the cattle bells afield. And there was something 
satisfactory in the sight of that great mountain that 
145 enclosed us to the north: whether it stood, robed in 
sunshine, quaking to its topmost pinnacle with the 
heat and brightness of the day; or whether it set itself 
to weaving vapors, wisp after wisp growing, trem¬ 
bling, fleeting, and fading in the blue. 


ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 


93 


9. The tangled, woody, and almost trackless foot- 150 
hills that enclose the valley, shutting it off from 
Sonoma on the west, and from Yolo on the east— 
rough as they were in outline, dug out by winter 
streams, crowned by cliffy bluffs and nodding pine 
trees—were dwarfed into satellites by the bulk and 155 
bearing of Mount Saint Helena. She overtowered 
them by two-thirds of her own stature. She ex¬ 
celled them by the boldness of her profile. Her 
great bald summit, clear of trees and pasture, a 
cairn of quartz and cinnabar, rejected kinship with 160 
the dark and shaggy wilderness of lesser hilltops. 


WORDS 

1. What is the special meaning here of “occidental” ( 1 . 3) ? 
(Note that Stevenson wrote the passage in 1882.) 

2. Have a guess at the etymology of “Calistoga.” Re¬ 
member the pioneer’s wagon which bore the Indian name of a 
creek in southern Pennsylvania. 

3. What is a “veranda” ( 1 . 10) ? What is notable about 
those mentioned here? 

4. “Hazard” ( 1 . 20) has an extraordinary source. Look it 
up. Account for its use as a golfing term; as an insurance 
term. 

5. “Cultus” ( 1 . 51) is rarely used. Does Stevenson use it 
here precisely? 

6. Define “barrow” ( 1 . 100). 

7. “System” ( 11 . 105-106) and “residents” ( 1 . 108) are 
used here in rather special senses. Explain. 

8. Why “quaking” ( 1 . 146) ? Show that you understand 
the phenomenon to which Stevenson refers. 

9. Define, as used in the passage, “intricate” ( 1 . 42), 
“desultory” (1. 43), “aroma” (1. 55), “impassive” (11. 63- 


94 


READING AND THINKING 


64), “plaintively” (1. 85), “grog” (1. 87), “hillocks” (11. 
101-102), “weedy” (1. 107), “spas” (1. 118), “pinnacle” 
(1. 146), “satellites” (1. 155). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Make a rough map of the valley of Calistoga. After 
one attentive reading of the extract you should be able to indi¬ 
cate the position of the railway, the highway, the main street, 
Cheeseborough’s, the Springs Hotel, Sonoma, Yolo, and 
Mount Saint Helena. 

2. Lucidity in description depends a great deal upon the 
order of presentation of details. List in order the major 
details of this passage. 

3. Is the order purposive? Explain. 

4. What is the special effectiveness of concluding with 
Mount Saint Helena? (Remember that the conclusion is 
the position of greatest emphasis.) 

5. Can you justify the digression on road-agents and stage¬ 
coach drivers? 

6. Point out and comment upon two examples of repetition 
of phrase in the second paragraph. 

7. Vividness and color are given to description by concrete 
and figurative expressions. List the figures of speech in the 
extract. 

8. “The grass was springing for the first time, nourished 
upon their blood, when I arrived in Calistoga” ( 11 . 45-47). 
State plainly and prosaically Stevenson’s idea in this sentence 
and comment on his phraseology. 

9. Do the same for the following expressions: “coasting 
eternity at every corner” (1. 62), “to the very roots of the 
hills” (11. 98-99), “seems to repose on a mere film” (1. 121), 
“rejected kinship with . . . lesser hilltops” (11. 160—161). 

10. Why is “threw off the garments of his trade” ( 11 . 37- 
38) better than “abandoned his trade”? 

11. Comment upon “launches his team” ( 11 . 59—60). 


ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 


95 


12. Explain the unusual use of “should” in the phrase 
“who should be brother to a soldier” (1. 56). 

13. Comment on the suggestiveness in the simile “like the 
barrow” (1. 100). 

14. Is there a reason other than euphony for the use of the 
mineralogical terms “cairn of quartz and cinnabar” (1. 160) ? 

15. What is the “doctrine of probabilities” ( 11 . 60-61)? 

16. Discuss the appropriateness of the phrase “bit the dust” 
(1. 45) and suggest reasons why it has become a humorous 
phrase. 

17. Discuss the connotations of the following phrases: 
“quaintly called” (1. 32), “intricate hill-country” (1. 42), 
“desultory fighting” (1. 43), “ticklish passage” (1. 69), “skirts 
of civilization” (1. 90), “civilized career” (1. 91), “weedy 
palm” (1. 107). 


SUGGESTED WORK 

See what you can find out about Grindoff ( 1 . 38) and Sam 
Weller ( 1 . 65). 


GEORGE BORROW 


George Borrow (1803-1881) was an eccentric, but a most 
engaging one. He was the son of a non-commissioned officer 
in the British Army, and so was early accustomed to a wan¬ 
dering life. He had a grammar school education, but a 
great enthusiasm for linguistics led him to independent study 
of a variety of languages, particularly Romany, or gypsy. 
An appointment as distributor for the British and Foreign 
Bible Society gave him an opportunity to live in Russia and 
Spain, where he worked hard for the Society but devoted 
even more time to adventures, particularly among the gypsies. 
His best-known work is Lavengro, a kind of autobiography, 
but his first success was won with his account of his Spanish 
adventures, The Bible in Spain , from which the following is 
taken. 


1. It was near sunset, and we were crossing the 
bay of Gibraltar. We had stopped at Algeziras, on 
the Spanish side, for the purpose of landing the old 
governor and his suite, and delivering and receiving 

5 letters. 

2. Algeziras is an ancient Moorish town, as the 
name denotes, which is an Arabic word, and signifies 
“the place of the islands.” It is situated at the 
water’s edge, with a lofty range of mountains in the 

10 rear. It seemed a sad, deserted place, as far as I 
could judge at the distance of half a mile. In the 
harbor, however, lay a Spanish frigate and French 
war brig. As we passed the former, some of the 
Spaniards on board our steamer became boastful at 


96 



GEORGE BORROW 


97 


the expense of the English. It appeared that, a few is 
weeks before, an English vessel, suspected to be a 
contraband trader, was seen by this frigate hovering 
about a bay on the Andalusian coast, in company 
with an English frigate, the Orestes . The Spaniard 
dodged them for some time, till one morning observ-20 
ing that the Orestes had disappeared, he hoisted 
English colors, and made a signal to the trader to 
bear down; the latter, deceived by the British en¬ 
sign, and supposing that the Spaniard was the 
friendly Orestes, instantly drew near, was fired at 25 
and boarded, and proving in effect to be a contra¬ 
band trader, she was carried into port and delivered 
over to the Spanish authorities. In a few days, the 
captain of the Orestes hearing of this, and incensed 
at the unwarrantable use made of the British flag, 30 
sent a boat on board the frigate, demanding that the 
vessel should be instantly restored, as, if she was not, 
he would retake her by force; adding, that he had 
forty cannons on board. The captain of the Span¬ 
ish frigate returned for answer, that the trader was 35 
in the hands of the officers of the customs, and was 
no longer at his disposal; that the captain of the 
Orestes, however, could do what he pleased, and that 
if he had forty guns, he himself had forty-four; 
whereupon the Orestes thought proper to bear away. 40 
Such at least was the Spanish account, as related by 
the journals. Observing the Spaniards to be in 
great glee at the idea of one of their nation having 
frightened away the Englishman, I exclaimed, “Gen¬ 
tlemen, all of you who suppose that an English sea 45 
captain has been deterred from attacking a Spaniard, 
from an apprehension of a superior force of four 
guns, remember, if you please, the fate of the San - 


98 


READING AND THINKING 


tissima Trinidad y and be pleased also not to forget 
so that we are almost within cannon’s sound of Trafal¬ 
gar.” 

3. It was near sunset, I repeat, and we were cross¬ 
ing the bay of Gibraltar. I stood on the prow of 
the vessel, with my eyes intently fixed on the moun- 
55 tain fortress, which, though I had seen it several 
times before, filled my mind with admiration and in¬ 
terest. Viewed from this situation, it certainly, if it 
resembles any animate object in nature, has some¬ 
thing of the appearance of a terrible couchant lion, 
60 whose stupendous head menaces Spain. Had I been 
dreaming, I should almost have concluded it to be the 
genius of Africa, in the shape of its most puissant 
monster, who had bounded over the sea from the 
clime of sand and sun, bent on the destruction of the 
65 rival continent, more especially as the hue of its stony 
sides, its crest and chine, is tawny even as that of the 
hide of the desert king. A hostile lion has it almost 
invariably proved to Spain, at least since it first be¬ 
gan to play a part in history, which was at the time 
70 when Tarik seized and fortified it. It has for the 
most part been in the hands of foreigners: first the 
swarthy and turbaned Moor possessed it, and it is 
now tenanted by a fair-haired race from a distant 
isle. Though a part of Spain, it seems to disavow 
75 the connection, and at the end of a long narrow sandy 
isthmus, almost level with the sea, raising its blasted 
and perpendicular brow to denounce the crimes 
which deform the history of that fair and majestic 
land. 

so 4. It was near sunset, I say it for the third time, 
and we were crossing the bay of Gibraltar. Bay! 
it seemed no bay, but an inland sea, surrounded on 


GEORGE BORROW 


99 


all sides by enchanted barriers, so strange, so won¬ 
derful was the aspect of its coasts. Before us lay 
the impregnable hill; on our right, the African con¬ 
tinent, with its grey Gibil Muza, and the crag of 
Ceuta, to which last a solitary bark seemed steering 
its way; behind us the town we had just quitted, with 
its mountain wall; on our left the coast of Spain. 
The surface of the water was unruffled by a wave, 
and as we rapidly glided on, the strange object which 
we were approaching became momentarily more dis¬ 
tinct and visible. There, at the base of the moun¬ 
tain, and covering a small portion of its side, lay the 
city, with its ramparts garnished with black guns 
pointing significantly at its moles and harbors; 
above, seemingly on every crag which could be 
made available for the purpose of defense or de¬ 
struction, peered batteries, pale and sepulchral look¬ 
ing, as if ominous of the fate which awaited any in¬ 
trusive foe; whilst east and west, towards Africa and 
Spain, on the extreme points, rose castles, towers, or 
atalaias which overcrowed the whole, and all the 
circumjacent region, whether land or sea. Mighty 
and threatening appeared the fortifications, and 
doubtless, viewed in any other situation, would have 
alone occupied the mind and engrossed its wonder; 
but the hill, the wondrous hill, was everywhere about 
them, beneath them, or above them, overpowering 
their effect as a spectacle. Who, when he beholds 
the enormous elephant, with his brandished trunk, 
dashing impetuously to the war, sees the castle which 
he bears, or fears the javelins of those whom he car¬ 
ries, however skilful and warlike they may be? 
Never does God appear so great and powerful as 
when the works of His hands stand in contrast with 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 

115 


100 


READING AND THINKING 


the labors of man. Survey the Escorial, it is a proud 
work, but wonder if you can when you see the moun¬ 
tain mocking it behind; survey that boast of Moor- 
120 ish kings, survey Granada from its plain, and won¬ 
der if you can, for you see the Alpujarra mocking it 
from behind. Oh, what are the works of man com¬ 
pared with those of the Lord? Even as man is 
compared with his Creator. Man builds pyramids, 
125and God builds pyramids: the pyramids of man are 
heaps of shingles, tiny hillocks on a sandy plain; the 
pyramids of the Lord are Andes and Indian hills. 
Man builds walls and so does his Master; but the 
walls of God are the black precipices of Gibraltar 
130 and Horneel, eternal, indestructible, and not to be 
scaled; whilst those of man can be climbed, can be 
broken by the wave or shattered by the lightning 
or the powder blast. Would man display his power 
and grandeur to advantage, let him flee far from the 
135hills; for the broad pennants of God, even His 
clouds, float upon the tops of the hills, and the maj¬ 
esty of God is most manifest among the hills. Call 
Gibraltar the hill of Tarik or Hercules if you will, 
but gaze upon it for a moment and you will call it 
ho the hill of God. Tarik and the old giant may have 
built upon it; but not all the dark race of whom 
Tarik was one, nor all the giants of old renown of 
whom the other was one, could have built up its crags 
or chiselled the enormous mass to its present shape. 

WORDS 

i. It is the prefix al which most suggests that “Algeziras” 
(1. 2) is an Arabic word. From the dictionary make a list 
of six words with the prefix al common in English but 


GEORGE BORROW 


101 


derived from Arabic. What other place name in the selection 
illustrates the prefix? 

2. The following words are decidedly unfamiliar, and an 
unabridged dictionary will be found necessary for some of 
them: “couchant” (1. 59), “puissant” (1. 62)/ “chine” 
(1. 66), “moles” (1. 96), “atalaias” (1. 103), “overcrowed” 
(1. 103), “circumjacent” (1. 104), “shingles” (1. 126). 

3. When Borrow wrote this passage he could assume with 
some safety that his readers would understand these words 
and phrases in the second paragraph: “frigate” (1. 12), 
“brig” (1. 13), “contraband trader” (1. 17), “bear down” 
(1. 23), “boarded” (1. 26), “carried into port” (1. 27), “on 
board” ( 1 . 31), “bear away” ( 1 . 40). You should know 
some of them from Dana’s Two Years before the Mast (see 
p. 50). Make a comparison and look up the new terms. 

4. The words “journals” ( 1 . 42), “clime” ( 1 . 64), “crest” 
(1. 66), and “garnished” (1. 95) are familiar but are not 
commonly used as they are here. Explain the meanings in 
this passage. 

5. The phrases “apprehension of a superior force” ( 1 . 47), 
“engrossed its wonder” (1. 107), and “ominous of the fate” 
( 1 . 100) are somewhat unusual. Explain each. 

6. Explain the meaning here of “suite” ( 1 . 4), “deterred” 
(1. 46), “genius” (1. 62), “disavow” (1. 74), “isthmus” 
(1. 76), “impregnable” (1. 85), “sepulchral” (1. 99), and 
“scaled” (1. 131). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Indicate the three main divisions of the passage. What 
is the subject of each? 

2. The repetition of “it was near sunset” to link the sec¬ 
tions of the passage is too obvious to question. Discuss the 
effect of the device, particularly with respect to humor, un¬ 
intentional or otherwise. 

3. What is Borrow’s point of view in the first division? 
Point out another passage which suggests the same idea. 


102 


READING AND THINKING 


4. Parts two and three concern the same subject. What 
is the difference between them in point of view and purpose? 

5. Into what two parts does the last paragraph divide? 
What is the purpose of each? 

6. The tone of the last part of the final paragraph is one of 
impassioned eloquence. Is it appropriate to the thought? 

7. Impassioned prose often seems rhythmic, an effect some¬ 
times achieved by repetition of phrases or by word pattern. 
List the occurrences of such repetitions from “but the hill, 
the wondrous hill” ( 1 . 108) to the end of the excerpt. You 
should find at least six. 

8. In the third paragraph, Gibraltar is “the mountain 
fortress,” the lion is “the genius of Africa” and “the desert 
king.” Point out several similar figurative phrases. This 
device is sometimes called “elegant variation.” Is it over¬ 
done here? 

9. Borrow assumes that his readers are familiar with 
Santissima Trinidad, Trafalgar, Tarik, Moor, Escorial, Gra¬ 
nada, Horneel, “The hill of Tarik or Hercules.” What 
geographical or historical fact is involved in each? 

IO. Discuss the principle, or philosophy, of the fourth 
paragraph. What does it suggest about human conduct? 
Is it an example of the “romantic imagination” referred to in 
Greenough and Kittredge (see p. 5) ? 

SUGGESTED WORK 

1. Read the Epistle Dedicatory of Hakluyt’s Voyages and 
compare his point of view with Borrow’s. 

2. Read Shelley’s poem Ozymandias and compare his idea 
with that of Borrow in the fourth paragraph. 

3. Compare the attitude toward Nature here with that of 
Hawthorne (see pp. 58-59), Burroughs (see p. 76), and 
Parkman (see p. 82). 


A. A. MILNE 


A. A. Milne (1882— ), an Englishman, was educated 

at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. 
He went into journalism and was assistant-editor of Punch 
for several years before the World War, during which he was 
in the army. Since the War, he has been well known as a 
dramatist, verse writer, and essayist. His great reputation 
in America was probably established by a book of children’s 
verse, When We Were Very Young; but his plays, notably 
Mr. Pim Passes By and The Dover Road , have been highly 
successful. The following complete essay is an example of 
his whimsical, familiar-essay style.* 


1. Last night the waiter put the celery on with the 
cheese, and I knew that summer was indeed dead. 
Other signs of autumn there may be—the redden¬ 
ing leaf, the chill in the early-morning air, the misty 
evenings—but none of these comes home to me so 5 
truly. There may be cool mornings in July; in a 
year of drought the leaves may change before their 
time; it is only with the first celery that summer is 
over. 

2. I knew all along that it would not last. Even 10 
in April I was saying that winter would soon be here. 
Yet somehow it had begun to seem possible lately 
that a miracle might happen, that summer might 
drift on and on through the months—a final up- 

*Taken from Not That It Matters by A. A. Milne, published and 
copyrighted by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York. Reprinted by 
permission. 


103 




104 


READING AND THINKING 


isheaval to crown a wonderful year. The celery set¬ 
tled that. Last night with the celery autumn came 
into its own. 

3. There is a crispness about celery that is of the 
essence of October. It is as fresh and clean as a 

20 rainy day after a spell of heat. It crackles pleas¬ 
antly in the mouth. Moreover it is excellent, I am 
told, for the complexion. One is always hearing 
of things which are good for the complexion, but 
there is no doubt that celery stands high on the list. 
25 After the burns and freckles of summer one is in 
need of something. How good that celery should 
be there at one’s elbow. 

4. A week ago—(“A little more cheese, waiter”) 
—a week ago I grieved for the dying summer. I 

30 wondered how I could possibly bear the waiting— 
the eight long months till May. In vain to comfort 
myself with the thought that I could get through 
more work in the winter undistracted by thoughts of 
cricket grounds and country houses. In vain, 
35 equally, to tell myself that I could stay in bed later 
in the mornings. Even the thought of after¬ 
breakfast pipes in front of the fire left me cold. But 
now, suddenly, I am reconciled to autumn. I see 
quite clearly that all good things must come to an 
40 end. The summer has been splendid, but it has 
lasted long enough. This morning I welcomed the 
chill in the air; this morning I viewed the falling 
leaves with cheerfulness; and this morning I said to 
myself, “Why, of course, I’ll have celery for lunch.” 
45 (“More bread, waiter.”) 

5. “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,” 
said Keats, not actually picking out celery in so many 
words, but plainly including it in the general bless- 


A. A. MILNE 


105 

ings of the autumn. Yet what an opportunity he 
missed by not concentrating on that precious root. 50 
Apples, grapes, nuts, and vegetable marrows he men¬ 
tions specially—and how poor a selection! For 
apples and grapes are not typical of any month, so 
ubiquitous are they, vegetable marrows are vege¬ 
tables pour rire and have no place in any serious 55 
consideration of the seasons, while as for nuts, have 
we not a national song which asserts distinctly, 
“Here we go gathering nuts in May”? Season of 
mists and mellow celery, then let it be. A pat of 
butter underneath the bough, a wedge of cheese, a60 
loaf of bread and—Thou. 

6 . How delicate are the tender shoots unfolded 
layer by layer. Of what a whiteness is the last baby 
one of all, of what a sweetness his flavor. It is well 
that this should be the last rite of the meal —finis e 5 
coronat opus —so that we may go straight on to the 
business of the pipe. Celery demands a pipe rather 
than a cigar, and it can be eaten better in an inn or 
a London tavern than in the home. Yes, and it 
should be eaten alone, for it is the only food which 70 
one really wants to hear oneself eat. Besides, in 
company one may have to consider the wants of 
others. Celery is not a thing to share with any man. 
Alone in your country inn you may call for the celery; 
but if you are wise you will see that no other traveler 75 
wanders into the room. Take warning from one 
who has learnt a lesson. One day I lunched alone 
at an inn, finishing with cheese and celery. Another 
traveler came in and lunched too. We did not 
speak—I was busy with my celery. From the other so 
end of the table he reached across for the cheese. 
That was all right! it was the public cheese. But 


106 


READING AND THINKING 


he also reached across for the celery—my private 
celery for which I owed. Foolishly—you know 
85 how one does—I had left the sweetest and crispest 
shoots till the last, tantalizing myself pleasantly with 
the thought of them. Horror! to see them snatched 
from me by a stranger. He realized later what he 
had done and apologized, but of what good is an 
90 apology in such circumstances? Yet at least the 
tragedy was not without its value. Now one remem¬ 
bers to lock the door. 

7. Yes, I can face the winter with calm. I sup¬ 
pose I had forgotten what it was really like. I had 
95 been thinking of the winter as a horrid wet, dreary 
time fit only for professional football. Now I can 
see other things—crisp and sparkling days, long 
pleasant evenings, cheery fires. Good work shall be 
done this winter. Life shall be lived well. The 
100 end of the summer is not the end of the world. 
Here’s to October—and, waiter, some more celery. 


WORDS 

1. The familiar essayist’s diction is often sensuous. List 
the words obviously used for their appeal to the senses, such as 
“reddening” (1. 3), “chill” (1. 4), “misty” (1. 4), “cool” 

a 6). 

2. “I knew that summer was indeed dead” ( 1 . 2). Milne 
might have said “was ended” or “was over.” What consti¬ 
tutes the excellence of his choice of phrase? 

3. In the light of the previous question, comment on 
“might drift on” (11. 13—14), “reconciled” (1. 38), “picking 
out” (1. 47), “asserts” (1. 57), and other verbs in the extract. 

4. What is the meaning of each of the foreign phrases 
used? 


A. A. MILNE 


107 


5. The following phrases are idioms commonly used in 
speech: “comes home to” (1. 5), “came into its own” (11. 16- 
17), “of the essence of” (11. 18-19), “stands high on the list” 
(1. 24), “at one’s elbow” (1. 27), “left me cold” (1. 37). 

(a) Explain the literal meaning of each. 

(b) Point out the connotation of each. 

(c) Note particularly “essence.” What is its force? 
What is its relation to the adjective “essential”? 

6. Look up the sources of these words: “pat,” “wedge,” 
“loaf” (11. 59-6i). 

7. What is the effect of “distinctly” ( 1 . 57) ? 

8. What is usually meant by “national song” ( 1 . 57)? 
And what does Milne mean ? 

9. Define, as used in the extract, “upheaval” ( 11 . 14-15), 
“spell” (1. 20), “complexion” (1. 22), “reconciled” (1. 38), 
“ubiquitous” (1. 54), “wants” (1. 72), and “tantalizing” 
( 1 . 86 ). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The familiar essay is often whimsical. Look up 
“whim” and “whimsical” in the dictionary and point out at 
least one whimsical turn of thought in each paragraph of the 
extract. 

2. Show that the use of the foreign phrases is whimsical. 

3. Literary allusion and quotation is another device of the 
familiar essayist. Here the device occurs in lines 46-47, 59— 
61, and 65-66. 

(a) Read Keats’s Ode to Autumn and discuss the appro¬ 
priateness of the allusion. 

(b) With some ingenuity and Bartlett’s Familiar Quota¬ 
tions you can locate the allusions. 

(c) Point out how all three add to the whimsical tone of 
the essay. 

4. The familiar essayist wanders pleasantly about, crossing 
and recrossing the path of his subject. Show that this is 


108 


READING AND THINKING 

Milne’s method by listing in order the topics of the succes¬ 
sive paragraphs. Note that the word “celery appears in the 
last sentence of the first, second, third, fourth, and seventh 

paragraphs. , 

e. The familiar essay requires a personal tone, as it tne 
writer were speaking to the reader. Point out phrases by 
which Milne accomplishes this effect. Notice the remarks 


to the waiter. . . „ 

6. Concreteness is desirable in this kind of writing. How 

many abstract statements or sentences can you find. (Com¬ 
pare questions 1-6 under WORDS.) . 

7. Exaggeration enters into the familiar essay. Discuss in 

this connection “miracle” ( 1 . I 3 )> “grieved ( 1 . 29), 

“tragedy” ( 1 . 91). “horrid” ( 1 - 95 )- „ , 

8 . Keats does not mention vegetable marrows ( 1 . 50 - 
His word is “gourd.” Try to discover whether Milne is 
justified in his substitution. Also why he calls marrows 
“vegetables pour rire " 


HEYWOOD BROUN 


Heywood Broun (1888— ) was born in Brooklyn, New 

York, and attended Harvard. Since 1908, when he was a 
reporter for The Morning Telegraph , he has been on various 
New York papers as sports writer, drama critic, and colum¬ 
nist. His column, It Seems to Me, first in the New York 
IVorld and then in the Scripps-Howard chain of newspapers, 
has made him a national figure although Broun rarely ex¬ 
presses any point of view other than that of the New Yorker. 
As a Socialist for a time and as president of the Newspaper 
Guild, Broun has been much in the public eye. The follow¬ 
ing, “The Arts of Inactivity,” is one of his newspaper col¬ 
umns, taken from a collection entitled It Seems to Me* 


1. Some people say we are having a revolution, 
and others deny it with either bitterness or gratitude. 

2. Of course, the difference of opinion lies largely 
in the definition of the word. To many it isn’t a 
revolution unless a lot of people are being “liqui -5 
dated” and ownership is passing from the top to the 
bottom. 

3. In this sense we certainly have had no revolu¬ 
tion. But changes of a somewhat startling nature 
are already with us and may crowd in even more 10 
closely. For one thing, we are definitely on our way 
to a fairly general acceptance of the five-day week. 
To a certain extent this may defeat the purposes of 
NRA. In certain industries it is likely that the dis- 

*Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. 


109 




110 READING AND THINKING 

iscovery will be made that there was a great deal of 
waste motion in the old-fashioned week. 

4. Penalties for tardiness are going to be more 
severe. The three-hour-for-lunch club has received 
its death blow. In many factories labor will be 

20 vastly speeded up. 

5. But I am not referring to these conditions. I 
want to comment on the fact that for centuries the 
proud Nordic has been living in an ascetic’s paradise. 
Possibly all Nordics do not fall under this criticism. 

25The British have had for many years a leisure class 
even among certain persons engaged in gainful occu¬ 
pations. Perhaps it would be more accurate to con¬ 
fine ourselves to the New England tradition. 

6. Surely it was so among these pioneers, their 

30 sons and their sons’ sons that work was sacred in its 

own right. This attitude was confirmed by hundreds 
of saws and aphorisms. The devil found work for 
idle hands to do, and the sluggard was advised to go 
to the ant for advice and example. And now the ant 

35 must sit and learn from his former pupil. 

7. When the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock 
they began to wrestle with the wilderness, the In¬ 
dians, and some of the harshest farm land the world 
has ever known. Although I have never attempted 

40 it myself, I have watched with great interest many 
people trying to plough the soil of Connecticut. 
Generations have been working on those boulders, 
but as yet they have only scratched the surface. A 
conscientious man can spend any number of hours 

45 per day and still quit with his task incomplete. 

8. A forty-hour week would have reduced the 
early Puritans to starvation. So, after the manner 
of all men, they made a virtue of their stark neces- 


HEYWOOD BROUN 


111 


sity. Even after the economic urge had abated, 
your true New Englander insisted upon imposing 
punishing hours upon himself and everybody under 
his control. There came into being the American 
business tradition. It went to ludicrous lengths. 
Even in the fairly frequent periods when there was 
no business the slave of the tradition insisted upon 
going to his office and sitting around. He had a 
feeling that any curtailment of hours was in a sense a 
surrender. 

9. He demanded that nobody should watch the 
clock. I hold that something startling, even if it 
isn’t revolutionary, has occurred when all of us are 
asked as a patriotic duty to keep close tally of time 
and report the names of miscreants who violate the 
code. The old morality has given way to the new 
or, at any rate, it is edging over in that direction. 
We no longer respect the man who forces himself or 
anybody else to toil through unholy hours. We see 
him now not as the useful and thrifty citizen but the 
greedy individual who is warring against planned 
production. 

10. Not only is the industrial world in a state of 
flux but it seems likely that the manners and folk¬ 
ways of hundreds of millions of people are about to 
be changed by the new-style week. I see by the 
papers that a committee has been appointed to advise 
toilers as to what they shall do with spare time to 
which they have not been accustomed. 

11. To be sure, unemployment has given millions 
a certain training in the arts of inactivity. But that 
is hardly the same thing. These people have been 
under the necessity of working upon the problem of 
the next meal and chasing the will-o’-the-wisp of pos- 


50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 

80 


112 


READING AND THINKING 


sible jobs. Leisure combined with some spending 
power and the dull blankness of joblessness are not 
85 the same thing at all. 

12. Just what will happen nobody can predict. 
I doubt that many toilers will report to receive hints 
as to what to do with an extra day off. I think that 
the International Organization of Amateur Radish 
90 Growers is likely to treble its membership within the 
next few years. I hope and expect that the crop of 
Sunday painters will be vastly augmented. All ex¬ 
isting standards of golf are certain to be lowered by 
the influx of new recruits. The artisan golfer who is 
95 well known in England will soon be making his ap¬ 
pearance here and challenging the supremacy of the 
idle rich. Glee clubs and amateur theatricals will 
flourish. The professional stage will come back into 
its own. 

ioo 13. And it may even be that every now and then 
somebody will buy a book. And from the point of 
view of the publishers that will be authentically a 
revolution. 


WORDS 

1. What does the suffix of “gratitude” ( 1 . 2) mean? 
List other words formed with it. 

2. Explain how “liquidated” ( 11 . 5-6) got the meaning in 
which it is used here. 

3. What is the connotation of “Nordic” ( 1 . 23)? Does 
it vary with the reader? 

4. Define “ascetic” ( 1 . 23) and give some examples from 
history. 

5. What is the relationship of “saws” ( 1 . 32) to “say”? 

6. How are “saws” different from “aphorisms” ( 1 . 32) ? 


HEYWOOD BROUN 113 

7. List other words formed with the suffix of “sluggard” 

0 - 33 ). 

8. What is the etymology of “imposing” ( 1 . 50) ? Ex¬ 
plain its meaning as a modifier. 

9. Is “unholy” ( 1 . 67) precisely used? Explain. 

10. Define “flux” ( 1 . 72) and compare “influx” ( 1 . 94). 

11. Define “treble” ( 1 . 90). Continue as far as you can 
the series “double,” “treble,” .... 

12. Explain the similarity of “artisan” ( 1 . 94) and “artist.” 

13. Give the meaning and etymology of “amateur” ( 1 . 97). 

14. Define, as used in the essay, “revolution” ( 1 . 1), “gen¬ 
eral” (1. 12), “pioneers” (1. 29), “boulders” (1. 42), “stark” 
(1. 48), “abated” (1. 49), “curtailment” (1. 57), “miscreants” 
(L 63), “folkways” (11. 72-73), “augmented” (1. 92), 
“authentically” (1. 102). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. This essay first appeared as a “columnist’s” article. 
The allusion to NRA in the third paragraph shows that it is 
topical. Point out other indications. 

2. Comment on the length of the paragraphs. Compare, 
for example, Macaulay (see p. 42) or Mill (see p. 214). 

3. Could the first three paragraphs have been written as 
one unified paragraph? Two sentences need careful con¬ 
sideration. 

4. Could other paragraphs be so combined ? 

5. Is “it” ( 1 . 4) a pronoun? 

6. The title of the essay is “The Arts of Inactivity.” Is 
it descriptive of the content? 

7. The title first appears in the text in the eleventh para¬ 
graph. Justify the inclusion of what precedes. 

8. What two saws or aphorisms are paraphrased in the 
sixth paragraph? Point out another in the eighth. 

9. What is “planned production” ( 11 . 69-70) ? 

10. What are Broun’s guesses about what will happen as a 
result of increased leisure? 


114 READING AND THINKING 

11. Point out humorous turns of thought in the last two 

paragraphs. . , 

12. What do you think is the purpose of concluding in sued 

vein? 


SUGGESTED WORK 

Look up an essay by Henry Pratt Fairchild, Exit the 
Gospel of Work, and one by Robert Louis Stevenson, An 
Apology for Idlers, and make a comparison with this selection 
from Broun. 


WESTBROOK PEGLER 


Westbrook Pegler (1894— ) is as thoroughly Ameri¬ 

can as some of the older writers were New England. He 
says what many American men would say were they as articu¬ 
late as he. Pegler was born in Minneapolis and was edu¬ 
cated at Lane Technical School and Loyola Academy, Chi¬ 
cago. After work for the United Press in Europe and service 
in the United States Navy, he became sports editor for the 
United News and Eastern sports correspondent for the 
Chicago Tribune. His sports columns indicated abilities as 
a thinker and writer on all subjects, and in 1933 he became a 
regular columnist for The New York World-Telegram and 
other papers. His comments on public affairs are attracting 
more and more readers. Pegler frequently appears as 
“tough” as Hemingway, but is not so. The following selec¬ 
tion, “Hair-Trigger Plaintiffs,” is from a collection entitled 
*T Aint Right * 


1. In deploring the ethics of the legal profession 
it is customary to forget that a large proportion of 
the citizens have become shyster-minded themselves 
and go through life hoping to be flicked on the flask 
by a rich man’s limousine, disappointed in love, 5 
thrown out of a solvent hotel, insulted, libeled, 
frightened, humiliated or barked at by a dog whose 
owner lives in a big house. 

2 . Quite aside from the small criminal element of 
professional plaintiffs who are constantly having 10 

♦Reprinted by permission of the author and Doubleday, Doran & 
Co., Inc., publisher. 


115 




116 READING AND THINKING 

painful accidents on the common carriers and in de¬ 
partment stores and suing for $100,000, there is a 
tendency among people to think in terms of damage, 
evidence, and lawsuits in every conceivable mishap or 
15 close call that befalls them. This is no special fail¬ 
ing of the poor, being common also among people 
who are middling well to do, and is the cause of 
much of the clutter, delay, and perjury in the Courts. 

3. Not to deny that a person who has suffered 
20 actual injury through the negligence or evil intent of 

another should receive compensation, it must be ad¬ 
mitted that many injuries, physical and otherwise, 
are brought to court which would be laughed off or 
accepted as the rub of the green if people had an 
25 honest mind about them. 

4. A man crosses a street against a traffic light, 
leaps to avoid a car, barks his shin against a curb, 
yells murder with great presence of mind, demands 
an ambulance and puts in a week’s time malingering 

30 in a hospital over an injury whose proper treatment 
would be a dab of iodine and a jolt of scotch. In 
due time his attorneys notify the attorneys for the 
insurance company that he has suffered great pain 
and will have to go on crutches the rest of his life, 
35 in addition to which his little woman has suffered a 
loss of his services, the whole bill amounting to 
$100,000. 

5. A grocery boy who plays football on the high- 
school team slips on an icy stoop delivering a dozen 

40 eggs and falls eighteen inches. This does him great 
bodily harm, and his lawyer sues the owner of the 
house for an endowment to see the young man the 
rest of his way through life, not failing to point out 
that he is the principal support of his parents and 


WESTBROOK PEGLER 117 

numerous brothers and sisters on his $3.00 a week 45 
from the grocer. 

6. A suburban lady comes staggering out of the 

cocktail bar of a hotel which is making money, begins 
to yodel and perform the split in the lobby and is 
firmly but gently shoved outside by the house detec- 50 
tive in the honest performance of his duty. Two 
weeks later it develops through the affidavits of 
friends who were lushing with her at the bar, that 
the plaintiff drank nothing but mild, nutritious sting¬ 
ers, prescribed by her physician as a remedy for 55 
anemia, and that she was not plastered but just sud¬ 
denly faint, not yodeling but crying for help, not 
doing the split but swooning. Therefore she has 
been publicly humiliated to an extent which cannot be 
compensated for a nickel less than $50,000. 60 

7. When Jack Dempsey was heavyweight cham¬ 
pion of the world he was sued for $100,000 by the 
father of a little girl who was said to have been 
snapped at by a dog which wandered onto premises 
which Dempsey had rented for his training. When 65 
Gene Tunney was heavyweight champion he was 
warned not to possess or drive any automobile be¬ 
cause an ordinary hub scrape with a fifty-dollar fliv¬ 
ver in a traffic jam would develop into a shambles 
with dead and wounded strewn over a wide area by 70 
the time the plaintiffs got to Court. Nobody ever 
sued a poor man for breach of promise or alienation. 
The brutality of the hit-and-run driver might be pal¬ 
liated in certain cases by the fear in the heart of every 
driver that no matter how carefully and well he 75 
drives his car an accident which is imposed on him 
by the victim’s own recklessness must inevitably in¬ 
volve him in litigation and might cost him every- 


118 READING AND THINKING 

thing he owns if he has the decency to stop and give 
so assistance. I recall a case in which a child sliding 
on a sled on a public highway broke his nose against 
a car which was parked compliant to the law and 
then brought suit against the owner’s employer, 
though the mishap occurred on the owner’s day off. 
85 8 . The vast profusion of lawyers with nothing 

much to do for eating dollars doubtless accounts for 
much of this abuse, but the thieves’ psychology of the 
people themselves is most to blame. 

9. The instinct now is not to avoid accident or 
90 other distress but to meet it at least halfway with a 

mind already at work on the scene in Court and a 
row of big numbers typed out in the plaintiff’s peti¬ 
tion. 

10. The shyster spirit of the citizens is fouling the 
95 Courts with many claims for injuries which in people 

of reasonably decent conscience could be repaired 
with a nickel’s worth of sticking plaster, a rock 
thrown at the barking dog, or a stein on the table and 
a good song ringing clear. 

WORDS 

I. All the following terms are proper to the legal profes¬ 
sion, but they are commonly used by all of us: “legal” (1. 1), 
“solvent” (1. 6), “libeled” (1. 6), “plaintiffs” (1. 10), 
“damage” (1. 13), “evidence” (1. 14), “lawsuits” (1. 14), 
“perjury” ( 1 . 18), “Courts” ( 1 . 18), “brought to court” 
(1. 23), “attorneys” (1. 32), “lawyer” (1. 41), “affidavits” 
(1. 52), “breach of promise” (1. 72), “alienation” (1. 72), 
“litigation” (1. 78), “petition” (11. 92-93). 

(a) What is the meaning of each in law usage? 

(b) Note the source of each and make appropriate gen¬ 
eralizations. 


WESTBROOK PEGLER 119 

(c) Compare “plaintiff” with “plaintive,” “plaint,” and 
“complaint.” 

(d) Compare “perjury” with “jury” and “adjure.” 

(e) Contrast “evidence” with “proof” and “testimony.” 

(f) Are “lawyer” and “attorney” exact synonyms? 
Compare British usage by looking up “barrister” and 
“solicitor.” 

(g) Look up the suffix yer of “lawyer” and list other 
words with the same suffix. (See ier and eer.) 

2. The following terms are used by Pegler in the general 
spirit of slang: “shyster-minded” (1. 3), “flicked on the 
flask” (1. 4), “close call” (1. 15), “laughed off” (1. 23), 
“rub of the green” (1. 24), “barks his shin” (1. 27), “dab of 
iodine” (1. 31), “jolt of scotch” (1. 31), “his little woman” 
(1. 35)> “yodel” (1. 49), “perform the split” (1. 49), “lush¬ 
ing” (1. 53), “stingers” (1. 54), “plastered” (1. 56), “hub 
scrape” (1. 68), “flivver” (1. 68), “traffic jam” (1. 69), 
“hit-and-run driver” (1. 73), “eating dollars” (1. 86), “row 
of big numbers” (1. 92). 

(a) What does each mean? 

(b) Which are really slang and which colloquial or dia¬ 
lectal ? 

(c) Which seem to be Pegler’s own invention? 

(d) Look at the selection by Mencken (see p. 9) and 
then test the value of these expressions. 

(e) Comment on the automobile as a reason for new or 
slang expressions. 

3. What are the “ethics of the legal profession” ( 1 . 1) ? 

4. What is the legal phrase for “disappointed in love” 

( 1 . 5 )? 

5. What are “common carriers” ( 1 . 11)? 

6. What is the force of professional in “professional 
plaintiffs” (1. 10) ? 

7. What is “thieves’ psychology” ( 1 . 87)? Compare 
“shyster-minded,” “professional plaintiff,” and “shyster 
spirit.” 


120 


READING AND THINKING 


8. Pegler uses “malingering” ( 1 . 29) in its primary sense. 
What is its common meaning? 

9. What is the sense here of “decency” ( 1 . 79) and “de¬ 
cent” (1. 96) ? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The idea of the selection appears in the first, third, and 
tenth paragraphs, and in the first sentence of the second para¬ 
graph. 

(a) Compare these sentences to see which one best sum¬ 
marizes the selection. 

(b) Comment on this use of repetition. 

2. What is the purpose of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and 
seventh paragraphs? Express the material in a series of 
short, simple phrases or sentences. 

3. This selection is a typical, present-day newspaper col¬ 
umn. Comment on the paragraphing and the transitions 
from that point of view. 

4. Which term best describes the humor of this selection— 
satirical? ironic? sarcastic? hard-boiled? 

5. What is the special effect or meaning of these phrases: 
“a solvent hotel” (1. 6), “in a big house” (1. 8), “with great 
presence of mind” (1. 28), “loss of his services” (1. 36), 
“falls eighteen inches” (1. 40), “which is making money” 
(1. 48), “to meet it at least halfway” (1. 90) ? 

6. Comment on the series “clutter, delay, and perjury” 
(L 18). 

7. “Physical and otherwise” ( 1 . 22). Point out illustra¬ 
tions of “otherwise.” 

8. Discuss the sentence “Nobody ever sued a poor man for 
breach of promise or alienation” (11. 71-72) in relation to 
Pegler’s point and purpose. 

9. How and where does Pegler illustrate the “honest 
mind”? 


WESTBROOK PEGLER 


121 


10. Relate the phrases “a nickel’s worth of sticking plaster, 
a rock thrown at the barking dog, or a stein on the table” 
(11. 97-98) to preceding parts of the selection. 

11. Express the first sentence of the fourth paragraph in 
abstract terms. 


RUDYARD KIPLING 


Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), an Englishman, was born 
in Bombay, India, and was educated at the United Services 
College, Westward Ho!, Devon. After a few years as a 
newspaperman in India, he began to attract attention with 
his short stories of India and within a few years was having 
a fabulous success as short-story writer and novelist. He re¬ 
ceived the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907. He married 
an American woman and lived for a time in Brattleboro, 
Vermont, but spent most of his life in England. In America, 
Captains Courageous is currently his best-known book, but 
many of his poems and short stories also have long been 
popular. The following extract is from one of his early 
Indian stories, The Drums of the Fore and Aft.* 


1. In the Army List they still stand as “The Fore 
and Fit Princess Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen-An- 
spach’s Merther-Tydfilshire Own Royal Loyal Light 
Infantry, Regimental District 329A,” but the Army 

5 through all its barracks and canteens knows them 
now as the “Fore and Aft.” They may in time do 
something that shall make their new title honorable, 
but at present they are bitterly ashamed, and the man 
who calls them “Fore and Aft” does so at the risk of 
10 the head which is on his shoulders. 

2. Two words breathed into the stables of a cer¬ 
tain Cavalry Regiment will bring the men out into 
the streets with belts and mops and bad language; 

♦This selection from the book IVee Willie Winkie is reprinted by 
permission of Mrs. Rudyard Kipling. 

122 




RUDYARD KIPLING 


123 


but a whisper of “Fore and Aft” will bring out this 
regiment with rifles. 

3. Their one excuse is that they came again and 
did their best to finish the job in style. But for a 
time all their world knows that they were openly 
beaten, whipped, dumb-cowed, shaking, and afraid. 
The men know it; their officers know it; the Horse 
Guards know it, and when the next war comes the 
enemy will know it also. There are two or three 
regiments of the Line that have a black mark against 
their names which they will then wipe out; and it will 
be excessively inconvenient for the troops upon whom 
they do their wiping. 

4. The courage of the British soldier is officially 
supposed to be above proof, and, as a general rule, it 
is so. The exceptions are decently shoveled out of 
sight, only to be referred to in the freshest of un¬ 
guarded talk that occasionally swamps a Mess-table 
at midnight. Then one hears strange and horrible 
stories of men not following their officers, of orders 
being given by those who had no right to give them, 
and of disgrace that, but for the standing luck of the 
British Army, might have ended in brilliant disaster. 
These are unpleasant stories to listen to, and the 
Messes tell them under their breath, sitting by the 
big wood fires, and the young officer bows his head 
and thinks to himself, please God, his men shall 
never behave unhandily. 

5. The British soldier is not altogether to be 
blamed for occasional lapses; but this verdict he 
should not know. A moderately intelligent Gen¬ 
eral will waste six months in mastering the craft of 
the particular war that he may be waging; a Colonel 
may utterly misunderstand the capacity of his regi- 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


124 READING AND THINKING 

ment for three months after it has taken the field, 
and even a Company Commander may err and be 
50 deceived as to the temper and temperament of his 
own handful: wherefore the soldier, and the soldier 
of today more particularly, should not be blamed for 
falling back. He should be shot or hanged after¬ 
wards—to encourage the others; but he should not 
55 be vilified in newspapers, for that is want of tact and 
waste of space. 

6 . He has, let us say, been in the service of the 
Empress for, perhaps, four years. He will leave in 
another two years. He has no inherited morals, 

60 and four years are not sufficient to drive toughness 
into his fibre, or to teach him how holy a thing is his 
Regiment. He wants to drink, he wants to enjoy 
himself—in India he wants to save money—and he 
does not in the least like getting hurt. He has re- 
65 ceived just sufficient education to make him under¬ 
stand half the purport of the orders he receives, and 
to speculate on the nature of clean, incised, and shat¬ 
tering wounds. Thus, if he is told to deploy under 
fire preparatory to an attack, he knows that he runs 
70 a very great risk of being killed while he is deploy¬ 
ing, and suspects that he is being thrown away to 
gain ten minutes’ time. He may either deploy with 
desperate swiftness, or he may shuffle, or bunch, or 
break, according to the discipline under which he has 
75 lain for four years. 

7. Armed with imperfect knowledge, cursed with 
the rudiments of an imagination, hampered by the 
intense selfishness of the lower classes, and unsup¬ 
ported by any regimental associations, this young 

so man is suddenly introduced to an enemy who in east¬ 
ern lands is always ugly, generally tall and hairy, 


RUDYARD KIPLING 


125 


and frequently noisy. If he looks to the right and 
the left and sees old soldiers—men of twelve years’ 
service, who, he knows, know what they are about— 
taking a charge, rush, or demonstration without em¬ 
barrassment, he is consoled and applies his shoulder 
to the butt of his rifle with a stout heart. His peace 
is the greater if he hears a senior, who has taught 
him his soldiering and broken his head on occasion, 
whispering: “They’ll shout and carry on like this for 
five minutes. Then they’ll rush in, and then we’ve 
got ’em by the short hairs !” 

8 . But, on the other hand, if he sees only men of 
his own term of service, turning white and playing 
with their triggers and saying: “What the Hell’s up 
now?” while the Company Commanders are sweat¬ 
ing into their sword-hilts and shouting: “Front-rank, 
fix bayonets. Steady there—steady! Sight for 
three hundred—no, for five! Lie down, all! 
Steady! Front-rank kneel!” and so forth, he be¬ 
comes unhappy, and grows acutely miserable when 
he hears a comrade turn over with the rattle of fire- 
irons falling into the fender, and the grunt of a pole- 
axed ox. If he can be moved about a little and al¬ 
lowed to watch the effect of his own fire on the 
enemy he feels merrier, and may be then worked up 
to the blind passion of fighting, which is, contrary to 
general belief, controlled by a chilly Devil and shakes 
men like ague. If he is not moved about, and be¬ 
gins to feel cold at the pit of the stomach, and in 
that crisis is badly mauled and hears orders that 
were never given, he will break, and he will break 
badly, and of all things under the light of the Sun 
there is nothing more terrible than a broken British 
regiment. When the worst comes to the worst and 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 

115 


126 


READING AND THINKING 


the panic is really epidemic, the men must be e’en let 
go, and the Company Commanders had better escape 
to the enemy and stay there for safety’s sake. If 
they can be made to come again they are not pleasant 
120men to meet; because they will not break twice. 

9. About thirty years from this date, when we 
have succeeded in half-educating everything that 
wears trousers, our Army will be a beautifully unre¬ 
liable machine. It will know too much and it will 
125 do too little. Later still, when all men are at the 
mental level of the officer of today, it will sweep the 
earth. Speaking roughly, you must employ either 
blackguards or gentlemen, or, best of all, black¬ 
guards commanded by gentlemen, to do butcher’s 
130 work with efficiency and despatch. The ideal soldier 
should, of course, think for himself—the Pocket - 
book says so. Unfortunately, to attain this virtue, 
he has to pass through the phase of thinking of him¬ 
self, and that is misdirected genius. A blackguard 
135 may be slow to think for himself, but he is genuinely 
anxious to kill, and a little punishment teaches him 
how to guard his own skin and perforate another’s. 
A powerfully prayerful Highland Regiment, officered 
by rank Presbyterians, is, perhaps, one degree more 
ho terrible in action than a hard-bitten thousand of ir¬ 
responsible Irish ruffians led by most improper young 
unbelievers. But these things prove the rule— 
which is that the midway men are not to be trusted 
alone. They have ideas about the value of life and 
145 an upbringing that has not taught them to go on and 
take the chances. They are carefully unprovided 
with a backing of comrades who have been shot over, 
and until that backing is re-introduced, as a great 
many Regimental Commanders intend it shall be, 


RUDYARD KIPLING 127 

they are more liable to disgrace themselves than the 
size of the Empire or the dignity of the Army allows. 
Their officers are as good as good can be, because 
their training begins early, and God has arranged 
that a clean-run youth of the British middle classes 
shall, in the matter of backbone, brains, and bowels, 
surpass all other youths. For this reason a child of 
eighteen will stand up, doing nothing, with a tin 
sword in his hand and joy in his heart until he is 
dropped. If he dies, he dies like a gentleman. If 
he lives, he writes Home that he has been “potted,” 
sniped, chipped,” or “cut over,” and sits down to 
besivge Government for a wound-gratuity until the 
next little war breaks out, when he perjures himself 
before a Medical Board, blarneys his Colonel, burns 
incense round his Adjutant, and is allowed to go to 
the Front once more. 

io. Which homily brings me directly to a brace of 
the most finished little fiends that ever banged drum 
or tootled fife in the Band of a British Regiment. 
They ended their sinful career by open and flagrant 
mutiny and were shot for it. Their names were 
Jakin and Lew—Piggy Lew—and they were bold, 
bad drummer-boys, both of them frequently birched 
by the Drum-Major of the Fore and Aft. 


WORDS 

i. The following are characteristically military terms: 
“barracks” (1. 5), “canteens” (1. 5), “regiment” (1. 15), 
“Company” ( 1 . 49), “deploy” ( 1 . 68). 

(a) Look up the etymology of each and explain how it 
became attached to military use. 


150 

155 

160 

165 

170 


128 


READING AND THINKING 


(b) How is “handful” ( 1 . 51) properly used as a syno¬ 
nym for company? 

2. The words “charge,” “rush,” and “demonstration” 
( 1 . 85) are used in a semimilitary sense. Explain each one. 

3. Give the American equivalents for the following char¬ 
acteristically British expressions: “regiments of the Line” 
( 1 . 23), “in the service of the Empress” ( 11 . 57-58), “a 
wound-gratuity” ( 1 . 162), and “birched by the Drum- 
Major” ( 11 . 173-174). 

4. The following expressions are either idioms or are used 
as idioms by Kipling: “to be above proof” ( 1 . 28), “broken 
his head” (1. 89), “by the short hairs” (1. 92), “must be e’en 
let go” (11. 116-117), “to come again” (1. 119), “a clean- 
run youth” ( 1 . 154). Explain each one. 

5. Kipling is known for his unorthodox use of conjunc¬ 
tions. Comment on “which” ( 11 . 10 and 167), “wherefore” 
(1. 51), and “that” (1. 145). 

6. Explain the use of “shall” in lines 40 and 155. 

7. Is “liable” ( 1 . 150) precisely used ? 

8. Kipling liked to use phrases involving parallelisms; for 
example: “belts, and mops, and bad language” (L 13); 
“clean, incised, and shattering wounds” (11. 67-68) ; “shuffle, 
or bunch, or break” (11. 73-74) ; “always,” “generally,” “fre¬ 
quently” (11. 81-82) ; “backbone, brains, and bowels” 
(1. 155) J “perjures,” “blarneys,” “burns incense” (11. 163- 

165). 

(a) Supply synonyms for each of these words or explain 
their meaning. 

(b) Discuss these parallelisms as a stylistic device. For 
example, how do they contribute to an effect of climax 
or surprise? 

9. In the following phrases discuss the choice of words, 
particularly the verbs, in relation to vividness of style: “the 
exceptions are decently shoveled out of sight” (11. 29-30) ; 
“the freshest of unguarded talk that occasionally swamps a 


RUDYARD KIPLING 


129 


Mess-table at midnight” ( 11 . 30-32) ; “applies his shoulder 
to the butt of his rifle with a stout heart” (11. 86-87) ; “the 
Company Commanders are sweating into their sword-hilts” 
(11. 96-97) ; “how to guard his own skin and perforate an¬ 
other’s” (1. 137). 

10. Explain “a comrade turn over with the rattle of fire- 
irons falling into the fender, and the grunt of a pole-axed 
ox” (11. 102-104) and comment on its quality as figure of 
speech. (Compare Lewis Carroll’s White Knight in Through 
the Looking Glass.) 

11. What is the connotation of “officially supposed to be 
above proof” (11. 27-28) ? 

12. Comment on Kipling’s choice of adjective in each of 
these phrases: “brilliant disaster” (1. 36), “beautifully un¬ 
reliable” (11. 123-124), and “most finished little fiends” 
(1. 168). 

13. The words “potted,” “sniped,” “chipped,” and “cut 
over” ( 11 . 160-161) are army slang. Show how each, from 
its original meaning, could become so. 

14. “Fore and Fit” ( 11 . 1-2) seems unintelligible at first. 

(a) Consider the meaning of each word and show how the 
terms are suitable. 

(b) How does “Fore and Aft” become a suitable opposite 
to “Fore and Fit”? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. This excerpt is the opening passage in a short story. 
The fourth to the ninth paragraphs, inclusive, are chiefly 
expository. How is Kipling justified in thus interrupting his 
narrative ? 

2. Point out the occurrences of alliteration in the ninth 
paragraph. Which one is deliberately used for effect? 

3. In what passage in the fifth paragraph is a similar effect 
achieved? In the eighth? 


130 


READING AND THINKING 


4. The phrase “strange and horrible stories” (11. 32-33) is 
a strong one. Do the examples which immediately follow 
warrant such strong adjectives? Characterize tb device. 

5. Criticize the order of words in the se s “beaten, 
whipped, dumb-cowed, shaking, and afraid” (1. iy). 

6. Show how the following phrases, put t ether and 
properly interpreted, form a kind of summary c Kipling’s 
exposition: “no inherited morals” (1. 59), “how 1 oly a thing 
is his Regiment” (11. 61-62), “hampered by the intense 
selfishness of the lower classes, and unsupported by any 
regimental associations” (11. 77—79), “upbringing that has 
not taught them to go on and take the chances” (11. 145- 
146), “dignity of the Army” (1. 151). 

7. What phrase in the ninth paragraph might serve as a 
title for the exposition? 

8. Collect and summarize Kipling’s remarks about edu¬ 
cation. 

9. Note the phrases “standing luck of the British Army” 
(11. 35-36) and “God has arranged” (1. 153). 

(a) What do these phrases suggest about the point of 
view of Kipling and the British? 

(b) Does this point of view in any way seem inconsistent 
with the main point? 

10. Show how the phrase “the midway men are not to be 
trusted alone” (11. 143—144) summarizes the paragraph up 
to that point. 

11. What is the general belief referred to in “contrary to 
general belief” (11. 107-108)? 

12. What is the idea back of the remark “cursed with the 
rudiments of an imagination” (11. 76-77) and how is it con¬ 
nected with “misdirected genius” (1. 134) ? 

13. Explain the illustrations involving Highland Regiment 
and Presbyterians (11. 138-139). 

14. Discuss Kipling’s point of view and ideas in general. 
For example, is he entirely snobbish? Is he consistent? 


RUDYARD KIPLING 


131 


^ SUGGESTED WORK 

b 9 l 

From y?flIT knowledge of some athletic game, say football, 
show how 'J&tpling’s discussion of blackguards, gentlemen, and 
midway ii&cJmight be applied, 
io 
>d 
h 


WASHINGTON IRVING 


Washington Irving (1783-1859) was born in New York 
into a prosperous business family. His physical weakness as 
a child and youth made him something of a problem, and 
his education was fragmentary. He was sent to Europe for 
his health—as were Parkman and many others—and re¬ 
turned to be one of a lively group of wits and amateur writers 
such as New York always has. In 1812 he went to England 
in connection with the family business and remained in 
Europe for twenty years. He returned to America as a 
famous man—the author of The Sketch Book and The Life 
of Columbus. Failure of the family business had forced him 
to write seriously, and an appointment to the American em¬ 
bassy in Madrid had opened a literary gold mine to him. 
Except for four years as Minister to Spain, Irving lived the 
rest of his life in America—chiefly at Tarrytown, New York 
—a celebrated public figure. The following extract is from 
a youthful work, the burlesque Knickerbocker s History of 
New York .* 


I. A treaty, or, to speak more correctly, a nego¬ 
tiation, therefore, according to the acceptation of ex¬ 
perienced statesmen, learned in these matters, is no 
longer an attempt to accommodate differences, to 
5 ascertain rights, and to establish an equitable ex¬ 
change of kind offices, but a contest of skill between 
two powers, which shall overreach and take in the 
other. It is a cunning endeavor to obtain by peace¬ 
ful maneuver, and the chicanery of cabinets, those 

♦Reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 


132 




WASHINGTON IRVING 


133 


advantages which a nation would otherwise have 10 
wrested by force of arms,—in the same manner as a 
conscientious highwayman reforms and becomes a 
quiet and praiseworthy citizen, contenting himself 
with cheating his neighbor out of that property he 
would formerly have seized with open violence. 15 

2. In fact, the only time when two nations can be 
said to be in a state of perfect amity is, when a ne¬ 
gotiation is open, and a treaty pending. Then, 
when there are no stipulations entered into, no 
bonds to restrain the will, no specific limits to awaken 20 
the captious jealousy of right implanted in our nature, 
when each party has some advantage to hope and 
expect from the other, then it is that the two nations 
are wonderfully gracious and friendly,—their minis¬ 
ters professing the highest mutual regard, exchang-25 
ing billets-doux, making fine speeches, and indulging 
in all those little diplomatic flirtations, coquetries, 
and fondlings, that do so marvellously tickle the 
good humor of the respective nations. Thus it may 
paradoxically be said, that there is never so good an 30 
understanding between two nations as when there is 

a little misunderstanding,—and that so long as they 
are on no terms at all, they are on the best terms in 
the world! 

3. I do not by any means pretend to claim the 35 
merit of having made the above discovery. It has, 
in fact, long been secretly acted upon by certain en¬ 
lightened cabinets, and is, together with divers other 
notable theories, privately copied out of the com¬ 
monplace book of an illustrious gentleman, who has 40 
been member of congress, and enjoyed the unlimited 
confidence of heads of departments. To this prin¬ 
ciple may be ascribed the wonderful ingenuity shown 


134 READING AND THINKING 

of late years in protracting and interrupting nego- 
45tiations. Hence the cunning measure of appointing 
as ambassador some political pettifogger skilled in 
delays, sophisms, and misapprehensions, and dexter¬ 
ous in the art of baffling argument,—or some blun¬ 
dering statesman, whose errors and misconstructions 
50 may be a plea for refusing to ratify his engagements. 
And hence, too, that most notable expedient, so popu¬ 
lar with our government, of sending out a brace of 
ambassadors,—between whom, having each an in¬ 
dividual will to consult, character to establish, and 
55 interest to promote, you may as well look for una¬ 
nimity and concord as between two lovers with one 
mistress, two dogs with one bone, or two naked 
rogues with one pair of breeches. This disagree¬ 
ment, therefore, is continually breeding delays and 
eo impediments, in consequence of which the negotia¬ 
tion goes on swimmingly—inasmuch as there is no 
prospect of its ever coming to a close. Nothing is 
lost by these delays and obstacles but time; and in a 
negotiation, according to the theory I have exposed, 
65 all time lost is in reality so much time gained:—with 
what delightful paradoxes does modern political 
economy abound! 

4. Now all that I have here advanced is so no¬ 
toriously true, that I almost blush to take up the 

70 time of my readers with treating of matters which 
must many a time have stared them in the face. But 
the proposition to which I would most earnestly call 
their attention is this, that, though a negotiation be 
the most harmonizing of all national transactions, 
75 yet a treaty of peace is a great political evil, and one 
of the most fruitful sources of war. 

5. I have rarely seen an instance of any special 


WASHINGTON IRVING 135 

contract between individuals that did not produce 
jealousies, bickerings, and often downright ruptures 
between them; nor did I ever know of a treaty be¬ 
tween two nations that did not occasion continual 
misunderstandings. How many worthy country 
neighbors have I known, who, after living in peace 
and good-fellowship for years, have been thrown 
into a state of distrust, caviling, and animosity, by 
some ill-starred agreement about fences, runs of 
water, and stray cattle! And how many well- 
meaning nations, who would otherwise have remained 
in the most amicable disposition towards each other, 
have been brought to swords’ points about the in¬ 
fringement or misconstruction of some treaty, which 
in an evil hour they had concluded, by way of mak¬ 
ing their amity more sure! 

6. Treaties at best are but complied with so long 
as interest requires their fulfilment; consequently 
they are virtually binding on the weaker party only, 
or, in plain truth, they are not binding at all. No 
nation will wantonly go to war with another if it has 
nothing to gain thereby, and therefore needs no 
treaty to restrain it from violence; and if it have any¬ 
thing to gain, I much question, from what I have wit¬ 
nessed of the righteous conduct of nations, whether 
any treaty could be made so strong that it could not 
thrust the sword through,—nay, I would hold ten 
to one, the treaty itself would be the very source to 
which resort would be had to find a pretext for hos¬ 
tilities. 

7. Thus, therefore, I conclude,—that, though it 
is the best of all policies for a nation to keep up a 
constant negotiation with its neighbors, yet it is the 
summit of folly for it ever to be beguiled into a 


80 

85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 


136 


READING AND THINKING 


treaty; for then comes on nonfulfilment and infrac¬ 
tion, then remonstrance, then altercation, then re¬ 
taliation, then recrimination, and finally open war. 

115 In a word, negotiation is like courtship, a time of 
sweet words, gallant speeches, soft looks, and en¬ 
dearing caresses,—but the marriage ceremony is the 
signal for hostilities. 


WORDS 

1. Because this selection concerns international relations 
the following words are used more or less technically: 
“treaty” (1. i), “negotiation” (11. 1-2), “statesmen” (1. 3), 
“kind offices” (1. 6), “powers” (1. 7), “maneuver” (1. 9), 
“cabinets” (1. 9), “nations” (1. 16), “party” (1. 22), “min¬ 
isters” (1. 24), “diplomatic” (1. 27), “ambassador” (1. 46). 

(a) Define each word as it is used here. 

(b) Mention other uses and meanings which each word 
may have. 

2. Note the ion suffix in “negotiation” ( 11 . 1-2), “accepta¬ 
tion” (1. 2), “proposition” (1. 72), and “attention” (1. 73). 

(a) What is the meaning and grammatical function of 
ionf 

(b) Find six other examples in this selection. 

3. Note the ions suffix in “conscientious” ( 1 . 12), “cap¬ 
tious” (1. 21), and “illustrious” (1. 40). 

(a) What is the meaning and grammatical effect of the 
suffix iousf 

(b) Mention other examples. 

4. Define, as used in this selection, “accommodate” ( 1 . 4), 
“overreach” (1. 7), “take in” (1. 7), “cunning” (1. 8), 
“chicanery” (1. 9), “tickle” (1. 28), “ingenuity” (1. 43), 


WASHINGTON IRVING 


137 


“pettifogger” (1. 46), “expedient” (1. 51), “brace” (1. 52), 
“interest” (1. 55), “rogues” (1. 58), “ill-starred” (1. 86), 
“righteous” (1. 102), “resort” (1. 106). 

(a) Note the source of each word. 

(b) Which seem to be book words and which conversation 
words ? 

(c) Compare “chicanery” and “pettifogger.” Compare 
the latter with “shyster” as used in the Pegler selection 
(see p. 115). 

5. In the series “for then comes on nonfulfilment and in¬ 
fraction, then remonstrance, then altercation, then retaliation, 
then recrimination, and finally open war” (11. 112—114) 
define each word carefully and comment upon the cumula¬ 
tive effect. 

6. Consider also the series “delays, sophisms, and mis¬ 
apprehensions” (1. 47), “jealousies, bickerings, and . . . rup¬ 
tures” (1. 79), and “distrust, caviling, and animosity” (1. 85). 

7. What is the meaning of “misconstructions” ( 1 . 49) ? 
How is it related to “construe” ? 

8. What is the relation between “amicable” ( 1 . 89) and 
“amity” (1. 93) ? 

9. Compare the sources of “expedient” ( 1 . 51) and “im¬ 
pediments” (1. 60). 

10. What is a “commonplace book” ( 11 . 39-40) ? 

11. What are the modern equivalents of “political econ¬ 
omy” ( 11 . 66-67) ? How do they differ from it in denotation 
and connotation? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. What sentence best sums up the thought of the ex¬ 
tract ? 

2. What sentence states the topic? 

3. Point out the transitions between paragraphs. 

4. “A treaty is not - but is -.” Summarize as 




138 


READING AND THINKING 


concisely as possible the thought of the first paragraph by fill¬ 
ing in the blanks. 

5. “With what delightful paradoxes does modern political 
economy abound!” ( 11 . 65-67). What is a paradox? Indi¬ 
cate at least three in the selection. 

6. In what way is the organization of the second paragraph 
similar to that of the third paragraph? 

7. The fifth paragraph is developed by analogy. Is the 
analogy just? 

8. What is the topic sentence of the third paragraph? 

9. Negotiations may be deliberately delayed by the ap¬ 
pointment of ambassadors of (a) -, ( b )-, or ( c )-. 

Fill in the blanks. 

10. This selection has the “smoothness” usually associated 
with eighteenth-century prose. 

(a) Discuss word choice in this connection. (Compare 
questions 1-4 under WORDS.) 

(b) Point out various examples of parallel structure. 
(Compare question 6 under WORDS.) Also ex¬ 
amples of antithesis. Discuss the effect of both on 
style. 

11. Despite the seriousness of the subject, Irving maintains 
a personal and humorous tone. 

(a) Point out personal touches. 

(b) Point out humorous touches, especially as in “tickle” 
(1. 28), the two comparisons with love-making, the 
troubles of individuals, and the series in lines 56-58. 

12. Discuss in connection with Irving’s argument any 
ancient or modern treaty with which you are familiar. 




THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 


Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) owed his great suc¬ 
cess to native intelligence and energy. The family was poor 
and his early education was sketchy, but he completed the 
course for M.D. at the University of London. A period of 
service on H.M.S. Rattlesnake determined him to go in for 
scientific research and lecturing. In 1859 he emerged as the 
chief proponent of Darwin’s Origin of Species and from then 
on was a world figure as lecturer and writer of essays in the 
interpretation and application of science and scientific method. 
The following extract is taken from one of the numerous 
lectures he delivered to groups of workingmen.* 


1. So much, then, by way of proof that the method 
of establishing laws in science is exactly the same as 
that pursued in common life. Let us now turn to 
another matter (though really it is but another phase 
of the same question), and that is, the method by5 
which, from the relations of certain phenomena, we 
prove that some stand in the position of causes 
towards the others. 

2. I want to put the case clearly before you, and I 
will therefore show you what I mean by another 10 
familiar example. I will suppose that one of you, 
on coming down in the morning to the parlor of your 
house, finds that a teapot and some spoons which had 
been left in the room on the previous evening are 
gone,—the window is open, and you observe the 15 
mark of a dirty hand on the windowframe, and per- 

*Reprinted by permission of D. Appleton-Century Company. 

139 




140 READING AND THINKING 

haps, in addition to that, you notice the impress of 
a hobnailed shoe on the gravel outside. All these 
phenomena have struck your attention instantly, and 
20 before two seconds have passed you say, “Oh, some¬ 
body has broken open the window, entered the room, 
and run off with the spoons and the teapot!” That 
speech is out of your mouth in a moment. And you 
will probably add, “I know there has; I am quite 
25 sure of it!” You mean to say exactly what you 
know; but in reality you are giving expression to 
what is, in all essential particulars, an hypothesis. 
You do not know it at all; it is nothing but an hy¬ 
pothesis rapidly framed in your own mind. And it is 
30 an hypothesis founded on a long train of inductions 
and deductions. 

3. What are those inductions and deductions, and 
how have you got at this hypothesis? You have 
observed in the first place, that the window is open; 
35 but by a train of reasoning involving many induc¬ 
tions and deductions, you have probably arrived long 
before at the general law—and a very good one it is 
—that windows do not open of themselves; and you 
therefore conclude that something has opened the 
40 window. A second general law that you have ar¬ 
rived at in the same way is that teapots and spoons 
do not go out of a window spontaneously, and you 
are satisfied that, as they are now not where you left 
them, they have been removed. In the third place, 
45 you look at the marks on the window sill and the shoe 
marks outside, and you say that in all previous ex¬ 
perience the former kind of mark has never been 
produced by anything else but the hand of a human 
being; and the same experience shows that no other 
50 animal but man at present wears shoes with hob- 


THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 141 

nails in them such as would produce the marks in the 
gravel. I do not know, even if we could discover 
any of those “missing links” that are talked about, 
that they would help us to any other conclusion! 
At any rate the law which states our present experi¬ 
ence is strong enough for my present purpose. You 
next reach the conclusion that, as these kinds of 
marks have not been left by any other animals than 
men, or are liable to be formed in any other way 
than by a man’s hand and shoe, the marks in question 
have been formed by a man in that way. You have, 
further, a general law, founded on observation and 
experience, and that, too, is, I am sorry to say, a very 
universal and unimpeachable one,—that some men 
are thieves; and you assume at once from all these 
premises—and that is what constitutes your hypoth¬ 
esis—that the man who made the remarks outside 
and on the window sill, opened the window, got into 
the room, and stole your teapot and spoons. You 
have now arrived at a vera causa ;—you have as¬ 
sumed a cause which, it is plain, is competent to pro¬ 
duce all the phenomena you have observed. You 
can explain all these phenomena only by the hypothe¬ 
sis of a thief. But that is a hypothetical conclusion, 
of the justice of which you have no absolute proof at 
all; it is only rendered highly probable by a series of 
inductive and deductive reasonings. 

4. I suppose your first action, assuming that you 
are a man of ordinary common sense, and that you 
have established this hypothesis to your own satis¬ 
faction, will very likely be to go off for the police, 
and set them on the track of the burglar, with the 
view to the recovery of your property. But just as 
you are starting with this object, some person comes 


55 

60 

65 

70 

75 

80 


142 READING AND THINKING 

85 in, and on learning what you are about, says, “My 
good friend, you are going on a great deal too fast. 
How do you know that the man who really made the 
marks took the spoons? It might have been a mon¬ 
key that took them, and the man may have merely 
90 looked in afterwards.” You would probably reply, 
“Well, that is all very well, but you see it is contrary 
to all experience of the way teapots and spoons are 
abstracted; so that, at any rate, your hypothesis is 
less probable than mine.” While you are talking 
95 the thing over in this way, another friend arrives, 
one of that good kind of people that I was talking 
of a little while ago. And he might say, “Oh, my 
dear sir, you are certainly going on a great deal too 
fast. You are most presumptuous. You admit 
ioo that all these occurrences took place when you were 
fast asleep, at a time when you could not possibly 
have known anything about what was taking place. 
How do you know that the laws of Nature are not 
suspended during the night? It may be that there 
105 has been some kind of supernatural interference in 
this case.” In point of fact, he declares that your 
hypothesis is one of which you cannot at all demon¬ 
strate the truth, and that you are by no means sure 
that the laws of Nature are the same when you are 
no asleep as when you are awake. 

5. Well, now, you cannot at the moment answer 
that kind of reasoning. You feel that your worthy 
friend has you somewhat at a disadvantage. You 
will feel perfectly convinced in your own mind, how- 
115 ever, that you are quite right, and you say to him, 
“My good friend, I can only be guided by the natural 
probabilities of the case, and if you will be kind 
enough to stand aside, and permit me to pass, I will 


THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 143 

go and fetch the police.” Well, we will suppose 
that your journey is successful, and that by good 
luck you meet with a policeman; that eventually the 
burglar is found with your property on his person, 
and the marks correspond to his hand and to his 
boots. Probably any jury would consider those facts 
a very good experimental verification of your hy¬ 
pothesis, touching the cause of the abnormal phe¬ 
nomena observed in your parlor, and would act 
accordingly. 

6 . Now, in this supposititious case, I have taken 
phenomena of a very common kind, in order that 
you might see what are the different steps in an ordi¬ 
nary process of reasoning, if you will only take the 
trouble to analyse it carefully. All the operations 
I have described, you will see, are involved in the 
mind of any man of sense in leading him to a con¬ 
clusion as to the course he should take in order to 
make good a robbery and punish the offender. I 
say that you are led, in that case, to your conclusion 
by exactly the same train of reasoning as that which 
a man of science pursues when he is endeavoring to 
discover the origin and laws of the most occult phe¬ 
nomena. The process is, and always must be, the 
same; and precisely the same mode of reasoning was 
employed by Newton and Laplace in their endeavors 
to discover and define the causes of the movements 
of the heavenly bodies, as you, with your own com¬ 
mon sense, would employ to detect a burglar. The 
only difference is, that the nature of the inquiry 
being more abstruse, every step has to be most care¬ 
fully watched, so that there may not be a single crack 
or flaw in your hypothesis. A flaw or crack in many 
of the hypotheses of daily life may be of little or no 


120 

125 

130 

135 

140 

145 

150 


144 READING AND THINKING 

moment as affecting the general correctness of the 
conclusions at which we may arrive; but, in a scien- 
155 tific inquiry, a fallacy, great or small, is always of 
importance, and is sure to be in the long run con¬ 
stantly productive of mischievous if not fatal results. 

7. Do not allow yourselves to be misled by the 
common notion that an hypothesis is untrustworthy 
160 simply because it is an hypothesis. It is often urged, 
in respect to some scientific conclusion, that, after 
all, it is only an hypothesis. But what more have 
we to guide us in nine-tenths of the most important 
affairs of daily life than hypotheses, and often very 
165ill-based ones? So that in science, where the evi¬ 
dence of an hypothesis is subjected to the most rigid 
examination, we may rightly pursue the same course. 
You may have hypotheses, and hypotheses. A man 
may say, if he likes, that the moon is made of green 
170 cheese: that is an hypothesis. But another man, 
who has devoted a great deal of time and attention 
to the subject, and availed himself of the most power¬ 
ful telescope and the results of the observations of 
others, declares that in his opinion it is probably com- 
175 posed of materials very similar to those of which our 
own earth is made up: and that is also only an hy¬ 
pothesis. But I need not tell you that there is an 
enormous difference in the value of the two hypothe¬ 
ses. That one which is based on sound scientific 
iso knowledge is sure to have a corresponding value; 
and that which is a mere hasty random guess is likely 
to have but little value. Every great step in our 
progress in discovering causes has been made in ex¬ 
actly the same way as that which I have detailed to 
185 you. A person observing the occurrence of certain 
facts and phenomena asks, naturally enough, what 


THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 


145 


process, what kind of operation known to occur in 
Nature applied to the particular case, will unravel 
and explain the mystery? Hence you have the scien¬ 
tific hypothesis; and its value will be proportionate 190 
to the care and completeness with which its basis has 
been tested and verified. It is in these matters as in 
the commonest affairs of practical life: the guess of 
the fool will be folly, while the guess of the wise man 
will contain wisdom. In all cases, you see that the 195 
value of the result depends on the patience and faith¬ 
fulness with which the investigator applies to his 
hypothesis every possible kind of verification. 


WORDS 

1. The following terms have special technical meanings in 
scientific reasoning; define each carefully: “proof” (1. 1), 
“phenomena” (1. 6), “hypothesis” (1. 27), “conclude” (1. 39), 
“observation” (1. 62), “premises” (1. 66), “assumed” (11. 
70-71), “cause” (1. 71), “demonstrate” (11. 107-108), “ex¬ 
perimental” (1. 125), “verification” (1. 125), “conclusion” 
(1. 138), “fallacy” (1. 155), “examination” (1. 167), “basis” 
(L 191). 

2. Differentiate carefully “inductions” ( 1 . 30) and “de¬ 
ductions” ( 1 . 31). Illustrate each from the example of the 
missing spoons and teapot. 

3. What is a “supposititious case” ( 1 . 129) ? Be sure that 
you know the meaning of case. 

4. Define “vera causa” ( 1 . 70). How is causa related in 
meaning to “cause” (1. 71), and to “case” (1. 106) ? 

5. Explain “abnormal phenomena” ( 11 . 126-127). 

6. What is the meaning of the phrase “supernatural inter¬ 
ference” ( 1 . 105) ? Give “interference” its full connotation. 

7. Give the meaning and connotation of “presumptuous” 
( 1 . 99 ). 


146 


READING AND THINKING 


8. Has “deal” ( 1 . 98) the same source as the word deal 
used in card-playing? 

9. Is the adjective “fatal” ( 1 . 157) too strong? 

10. Compare “occult” ( 1 . 141) and “abstruse” ( 1 . 149). 

11. Explain the relation of the adjective “hypothetical” 
(1. 74) to the noun “hypothesis” (1. 73) ; that is, explain the 
suffix ical. Mention other words with the suffix ical. 

12. “Fool,” “folly”; “wise,” “wisdom” ( 11 . 194 - 195 ). 

(a) Explain the relationship of these two pairs of words, 
that is, consider the function of the suffixes. 

(b) Mention other examples of this process of word¬ 
making. 

13. An hypothesis “which is based on sound scientific knowl¬ 
edge is sure to have a corresponding value” (11. 179-180). 
What is the force of “corresponding”? 

14. “Train of inductions” ( 1 . 30), “train of reasoning” 
( 1 . 35). Explain the figure of speech involved. 

15. Are “facts and phenomena” ( 1 . 186) used as synonyms? 

16. Explain the idiom “make good a robbery” ( 1 . 137). 

17. Explain the origin and applicability of “crack or flaw” 

(11. 150-151). 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The first paragraph is a transition paragraph. What 
subject has Huxley discussed in the passage just preceding 
this extract? 

2. Point out the specific word or phrase in the first sen¬ 
tence of each paragraph which most obviously bridges the 
thought from the preceding paragraph. 

3. What sentence summarizes Huxley’s purpose in the en¬ 
tire extract? 

4. State the purpose in your own words. 

5. In the third paragraph the inductions and deductions 

involve general laws and conclusions: (a) -, ( b )-, 

( c) -, ( d )-, ( e) -. Fill in the blanks. 







THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY 


147 


6 . Why did Huxley introduce the objecting friends of the 
fourth paragraph? 

7. Why does the second objection, as compared with the 
first, have you “somewhat at a disadvantage”? 

8 . Why are fallacies in scientific inquiry more important 
than those in inquiries of a “common kind”? 

9. What determines the validity of an hypothesis? 

10. The following terms represent steps in scientific pro¬ 
cedure. Arrange them in correct order and defend your 
arrangement: hypothesis, observation, law, conclusion. 

11. Express in your own words the contrast between 
“hypothesis” and “scientific hypothesis.” 

12. Explain the reference to “missing links” ( 1 . 53). 
What is Huxley’s implied attitude? 

13. What famous story or legend concerning Newton 
illustrates the reference to him in the sixth paragraph? 

14. Point out evidence that the selection is taken from a 
lecture. 


J. B. S. HALDANE 

J. B. S. Haldane (1892- ), an Englishman, is the son 

of an equally well-known scientist. He was educated in the 
aristocratic tradition at Eton and at New College, Oxford. 
He served in the Black Watch throughout the World War 
and then became distinguished in the biological sciences. 
He is now professor at the University of London, but devotes 
much time to lecturing, writing essays (scholarly, or familiar, 
or Marxist), and the study of world conditions, particularly 
in Spain. He has published several volumes of popular 
essays in interpretation of science, from one of which, Possi¬ 
ble Worlds, the following short essay is taken.* 


1. If, as I am inclined to suspect, the human will 
is to some small extent free, there is no such thing 
as a destiny of the human race. There is a choice 
of destinies. Even if our actions are irrevocably 

5 predetermined we do not know our destiny. In 
either case, however, we can point to a limited num¬ 
ber of probable fates for our species. 

2. First let us consider the stage for our drama. 
The earth has existed for over a thousand million 

10 years. During most of this period its surface tem¬ 
perature has not been very different from that now 
prevailing. The sun has not cooled down apprecia¬ 
bly during that time, and it will probably be only a 
little cooler a million million years hence, though 
15 somewhere about that time it is quite likely that the 

^Reprinted by permission of Harper & Brothers. 


148 




149 


J. B. S. HALDANE 

earth’s surface will be destroyed owing to the disrup¬ 
tion of the moon by tidal forces. Six hundred mil¬ 
lion years ago our ancestors were worms, ten thou¬ 
sand years ago they were savages. Both these 
periods are negligible compared with our possible 20 
future. Provided, therefore, that man has a future 
lasting for more than a few million years we can at 
once say that our descendants may, for anything we 
can see to the contrary, excel us a great deal more 
than we excel worms or jellyfish. 25 

3. There are, however, several alternatives to this 
prospect. A catastrophe of an astronomical order, 
such as a collision with a stray heavenly body, is un¬ 
likely. The earth has lasted a long time without 
any such disasters. The sun may possibly swell up 30 
temporarily, as similar stars occasionally do. In 
this case the human race will be very rapidly roasted. 

A disease may arise which will wipe out all, or almost 
all, mankind. But there is nothing in science to 
make such up-to-date versions of the apocalypse very 35 
probable. 

4. Even if man does not perish in this dramatic 
manner, there is no reason why civilization should 
not do so. All civilization goes back to a common 
source less than 10,000 years ago, very probably in 40 
Egypt. It is a highly complicated invention which 
has probably been made only once. If it perished it 
might never be made again. When in the past its 
light was extinguished in one area—for example, 
when the Angles and Saxons wrecked Roman Britain 45 
—it could be lit again from elsewhere, as our savage 
ancestors were civilized from Italy and Ireland. A 
modern war followed by revolutions might destroy 

it all over the planet. If weapons are as much im- 


150 


READING AND THINKING 


50 proved in the next century as in the last, this will 
probably happen. 

5. But unless atomic energy can be tapped, which 
is wildly unlikely, we know that it will never be pos¬ 
sible to box up very much more rapidly available 

55 energy in a given place, than we can already box up 
in a high explosive shell, nor has any vapor much 
more poisonous than “mustard gas” been discovered 
in the forty-one years that have elapsed since that 
substance was first produced. I think, therefore, 
60 that the odds are slightly against such a catastrophic 
end of civilization. 

6 . But civilization as we know it is a poor thing. 
And if it is to be improved there is no hope save in 
science. A hundred and forty years ago men, 

65 women, and children were being hanged in England 
for stealing any property valued at over a shilling, 
miners were hereditary slaves in Scotland, criminals 
were publicly and legally tortured to death in France. 
Europe was definitely rather worse off, whether in 
to health, wealth, or morals, than the Roman Empire 
under Antoninus Pius in A.D. 150. Since then we 
have improved very greatly in all these respects. 
We are far from perfect, but we live about twice as 
long, and we do not hang starving children for steal- 
75 ing food, raid the coast of Africa for slaves, or im¬ 
prison debtors for life. These advances are the 
direct and indirect consequences of science. Physics 
and chemistry have made us rich, biology healthy, 
and the application of scientific thought to ethics by 
so such men as Bentham has done more than any dozen 
saints to make us good. The process can only con¬ 
tinue if science continues. 

7. And pure science is a delicate plant. It has 


J. B. S. HALDANE 151 

never flowered in Spain, and today it is almost dead 
in Italy. Everywhere there are strong forces work¬ 
ing against it. Even where research is rewarded, 
the usual reward is a professorship with a full-time 
program of teaching and administration. The bac¬ 
teriologist can most easily earn a title and a fortune 
if he deserts research for medical practice. The po¬ 
tential physicist or chemist can often quadruple his 
income by taking up engineering or manufacture. 
In biology and psychology many lines of research 
are forbidden by law or public opinion. If science 
is to improve man as it has improved his environ¬ 
ment, the experimental method must be applied to 
him. It is quite likely that the attempt to do so will 
rouse such fierce opposition that science will again be 
persecuted as it has been in the past. Such a perse¬ 
cution may quite well be successful, especially if it is 
supported by religion. A world-wide religious re¬ 
vival, whether Christian or not, would probably suc¬ 
ceed in suppressing experimental inquiry into the 
human mind, which offers the only serious hope of 
improving it. Again, if scientific psychology and 
eugenics are used as weapons by one side in a political 
struggle, their opponents, if successful, will stamp 
them out. I think that it is quite as likely as not 
that scientific research may ultimately be strangled 
in some such way as this before mankind has learnt 
to control its own evolution. 

8 . If so, evolution will take its course. And that 
course has generally been downwards. The ma¬ 
jority of species have degenerated and become ex¬ 
tinct, or, what is perhaps worse, gradually lost many 
of their functions. The ancestors of oysters and 
barnacles had heads. Snakes have lost their limbs, 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

no 

115 


152 READING AND THINKING 

and ostriches and penguins their power of flight. 
Man may just as easily lose his intelligence. 

120 9. It is only a very few species that have devel¬ 

oped into something higher. It is unlikely that man 
will do so unless he desires to and is prepared to pay 
the cost. If, as appears to be the case at present in 
most parts of Europe and North America, the less 
125 intelligent of our species continue to breed more rap¬ 
idly than the able, we shall probably go the way of 
the dodo and the kiwi. We do not as yet know 
enough to avert this fate. If research continues for 
another two centuries, it is probable that we shall. 
130 But if, as is likely enough, the welfare of our de¬ 
scendants in the remote future can only be realized 
at a very considerable sacrifice of present happiness 
and liberty, it does not follow that such a sacrifice 
will be made. 

135 10. It is quite likely that, after a golden age of 

happiness and peace, during which all the immedi¬ 
ately available benefits of science will be realized, 
mankind will very gradually deteriorate. Genius 
will become even rarer, our bodies a little weaker in 
140 each generation; culture will slowly decline, and in a 
few thousand or a few hundred thousand years—it 
does not much matter which—mankind will return 
to barbarism, and finally become extinct. If this 
happens I venture to hope that we shall not have 
145 destroyed the rat, an animal of considerable enter¬ 
prise which stands as good a chance as any other of 
evolving towards intelligence. 

11. In the rather improbable event of man taking 
his own evolution in hand—in other words, of im- 
150 proving human nature, as opposed to environment— 
I can see no bounds at all to his progress. Less than 


J. B. S. HALDANE 153 

a million years hence the average man or woman will 
realize all the possibilities that human life has so far 
shown. He or she will never know a minute’s ill¬ 
ness. He will be able to think like Newton, to write 
like Racine, to paint like Fra Angelico, to compose 
like Bach. He will be as incapable of hatred as St. 
Francis, and when death comes at the end of a life 
probably measured in thousands of years he will 
meet it with as little fear as Captain Oates or Arnold 
von Winkelried. And every minute of his life will 
be lived with all the passion of a lover or a discov¬ 
erer. We can form no idea whatever of the excep¬ 
tional men of such a future. 

12. Man will certainly attempt to leave the earth. 
The first voyagers into interstellar space will die, as 
did Lilienthal and Pilcher, Mallory and Irvine. 
There is no reason why their successors should not 
succeed in colonizing some, at least, of the other 
planets of our system, and ultimately the planets, if 
such exist, revolving round other stars than our sun. 
There is no theoretical limit to man’s material prog¬ 
ress but the subjection to complete conscious con¬ 
trol of every atom and every quantum of radiation 
in the universe. There is, perhaps, no limit at all 
to his intellectual and spiritual progress. 

13. But, whether any of these possibilities will be 
realized depends, as far as we can see, very largely 
on the events of the next few centuries. If scientific 
research is regarded as a useful adjunct to the army, 
the factory, or the hospital, and not as the thing of 
all things most supremely worth doing, both for its 
own sake and that of its results, it is probable that 
the decisive steps will never be taken. And unless 
he can control his own evolution as he is learning to 


155 

160 

165 

170 

175 

180 

185 


154 


READING AND THINKING 


control that of his domestic plants and animals, man 
and all his works will go down into oblivion and 
darkness. 


WORDS 

1. The following words are used here in a somewhat 
specialized scientific sense; explain the use of each in science: 
“species” (1. 7), “catastrophe” (1. 27), “functions” (1. 116), 
“evolving” ( 1 . 147), “domestic” ( 1 . 186). 

2. What is the meaning and grammatical effect of the 
suffix by which “catastrophe” is made into “catastrophic” 
( 1 . 60) ? Mention other examples. 

3. “Astronomical” ( 1 . 27), “physics” ( 1 . 77), “chemistry” 
(1. 78), “biology” (1. 78), “ethics” (1. 79), “bacteriologist” 
(11. 88-89), “psychology” (1. 93), “eugenics” (1. 106), 
“universe” (1. 175). 

(a) Explain with what body of knowledge each of the 
above words is associated. 

(b) Explain the ology suffix and mention other words 
made up with it. 

(c) What other words have the eu prefix of “eugenics”? 
What does it mean ? 

(d) Explain the ist suffix of “bacteriologist.” Compare 
“physicist” (1. 91) and “chemist” (1. 91). 

(e) Look up the ics suffix of “ethics” and “physics.” 

(f) Suggest why we say chemistry rather than, as might 
be expected, chemics. (Look up the suffix ry or ery.) 

(g) Why do we use astronomy rather than, as might be 
expected, astrology? 

4. Explain “persecuted” ( 1 . 99). What happens to the 
word when the prefix pro is substituted for the prefix per? 

5. “Irrevocably” ( 1 . 4), “likely” ( 1 . 15), “temporarily” 
(1. 31), “rapidly” (1. 32), “highly” (1. 41), “probably” 
(1. 42), “publicly” (1. 68), “legally” (1. 68). 


155 


J. B. S. HALDANE 

(a) Explain the suffix ly. 

(b) What is its grammatical effect? 

(c) Which of these words have taken a new meaning since 
the ly suffix was added ? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Point out the transitions, specific or implied, between 
paragraphs. 

2. What is summarized by “this prospect” (11. 26-27)? 
What is its relation to the whole selection ? 

3. “Several alternatives” (1. 26) is the key to the body 

of the selection. The alternatives are (a) -, (b) -, 

( c )- and its consequences -, ( d) -. Fill in the 

blanks. 

4. Of (a), in the previous question, Haldane says “noth¬ 
ing in science . . . very probable”; of ( b ), “odds slightly 
against”; of (c), “quite as likely as not”; of the consequence 
of ( c )t “generally downward”; of (d), “rather improbable.” 

(a) What is the total effect of these qualifying remarks? 

(b) Can you make out a consistent point of view? 

(c) Discuss these remarks in relation to the dogmatic tone 
of the whole extract. 

5. Discuss the value, effect, and logic of “slightly” in the 
last sentence of the fifth paragraph in relation to the “might's” 
in the fourth paragraph. 

>6. The eighth and ninth paragraphs appear to contradict 
what Haldane says in the final sentence of the second para¬ 
graph. Is the contradiction real or apparent? 

7. The last sentence of the eighth paragraph may be an ex¬ 
ample of false analogy. Discuss. 

8. What is “pure science” (1. 83)? Where in the selec¬ 
tion does Haldane amplify the phrase? 

9. Why, in the eleventh paragraph, are Newton, Racine, 
Fra Angelico, Bach, and St. Francis used to illustrate the 







156 


READING AND THINKING 


point? (You will find it considerably less easy to explain 
Captain Oates and Arnold von Winkelried, but have a try 
at it.) 

10. In an article on aeronautics look up Lilienthal, Pilcher, 
Mallory, and Irvine. 

11. Explain these phrases: “up-to-date versions of the 
apocalypse” (1. 35) ; “passion of a lover or a discoverer” 
(11. 162-163) ; “interstellar space” (1. 166). 

12. Although this selection presupposes some knowledge 
of science, only two points require special knowledge: “dis¬ 
ruption of the moon by tidal forces” ( 11 . 16-17) and “There 
is no theoretical limit to man’s material progress but the sub¬ 
jection to complete conscious control of every atom and every 
quantum of radiation in the universe” ( 11 . 172-175). Do 
what you can to explain these ideas. 


SUGGESTED WORK 

1. Find out about Bentham ( 1 . 80). Particularly, what 
is his connection with the Utilitarianism mentioned in the 
questions on Mill (see p. 220) and what his extraordinary 
present connection with the University of London? 

2. The selection was published in 1928. What is the 
present situation with relation to the remarks about atomic 
energy and mustard gas? 

3. Compare the remark about the rat ( 11 . 143-147) with 
the selection from Zinsser (see p. 165); and the remark 
about the experimental method applied to man (11. 94-97) 
with the selections from Carrel (see p. 176) and Clendening 
(see p. 157). 


LOGAN CLENDENING 


Logan Clendening (1884- ) was born in Kansas City 

and was educated at the University of Michigan and the 
University of Kansas. At the latter school he gained the 
M.D. degree. He has an established practice in Kansas 
City, Missouri, and also teaches at the University of Kansas. 
The Human Body, 1927, gave him a national reputation as 
a popular writer on scientific and medical subjects. He has 
conducted a newspaper column of medical comment, has lec¬ 
tured, and has published two books, The Care and Feeding 
of Adults and Behind the Doctor. The following extract is 
from The Human Body * 


1. Students of human anatomy, human physi¬ 

ology, and human pathology have been curiously 
blind to all the work done in the field of heredity. 
Why, I do not know. But it is certainly true that 
from medical literature you would hardly discovers 
that any such knowledge exists. One would suppose 
that no diseases obeyed the laws of heredity at all. 
But such is not the case. There are many unit fac¬ 
tors which are disease factors—many more I believe 
than pathologists generally recognize. Animal ex-10 
perfments in heredity can be carried on with diseases 
as the units to be observed. 1 

2. Certain human diseases are so strikingly 
bizarre in themselves that they have been easily seen 
to be hereditary. One of these has just been men-15 

^Reprinted by permission of and special arrangement with Alfred 
A. Knopf, Inc., authorized publishers. 

157 




158 READING AND THINKING 

tioned—color blindness. Another is a tendency for 
the blood not to coagulate—haemophilia—the pa¬ 
tients are called bleeders—it is transmitted only 
through mothers and only to sons. Feeble-minded- 
20 ness is notoriously hereditary, as witness many nota¬ 
ble studies, particularly those of Goddard, Dugdale, 
and Estabrook. Many other diseases which are 
very common, which appear suddenly in adult life 
or in late middle age or even in old age, have been 
25 intensely investigated by all the means at present at 
our command—the chemical laboratory, the micro¬ 
scopic study of tissue, the bacteriologic laboratory, 
etc.—without yielding any real information about 
their cause or nature. There is coming about a 
30 strong belief in many minds that these are hereditary 
and due to a tendency laid down in the germ plasm 
for certain bodily tissues to develop along certain 
lines beginning at a certain time in life. 

3. High blood-pressure, or hypertension, as it 
35 may be conveniently called, has been investigated 
very intensively to determine its origin. To some 
of these investigations I have already alluded— i.e., 
the determination to make out a cause in the use of 
alcohol, or red meat, or tobacco, or salt, etc. Most 
40 work on the subject, however, fails of complete veri¬ 
fication, because it does not take into account the 
exceptions (the many cases of hypertension, for 
instance, among people who never use alcohol), and 
secondly because none of them account for its occur- 
45rence in late life. It is distinctly a disease of senes¬ 
cence. Yet, curiously enough, every once in a while 
we find a comparatively young person with a true 
case of hypertension, dying of old age at thirty-five 
years. In such a case the whole family history is 


LOGAN CLENDENING 


159 


riddled with apoplexy, Bright’s disease, sudden 
death, and heart-failure. Never, however, do we 
find a very old person with an unusually high blood- 
pressure. Physicians are acknowledging the heredi¬ 
tary nature of the condition: Mortensen (Journal of 
the American Medical Association f volume 85, num¬ 
ber 22, page 1696, November 28, 1925), after a 
careful review of a large number of cases, concludes 
that it is definitely hereditary and that an abnormal 
associated functional habit of breaking up the meats 
and albumin in the body is also hereditary. 

4. Think of what Maud Slye did with cancer 
in mice. She has been selecting out mice in which 
cancer occurs spontaneously and inbreeding the can¬ 
cerous stock for twelve years. She cannot only 
breed mice which will die of cancer in a definite 
mathematical proportion (one out of eight), but she 
can breed mice which will develop cancer of a par¬ 
ticular part of the body. You write to her and say: 
“Send me two dozen mice which will develop cancer 
of the liver,” and along they come and by and by 
begin to die off of cancer of the liver. In certain of 
her litters every mouse has died of cancer. The 
susceptibility to cancer acts as a Mendelian recessive, 
the resistance to it as a Mendelian dominant. 

5. Can anything be done to escape these heredi¬ 
tary tendencies? Yes, certainly. We have the 
knowledge—the knowledge of the science of heredity 
—and the method, if we wish to apply the method. 
It simply means the elimination of the thing called 
love as it is concerned in the selection of a mate for 
marriage. Or it means the elimination of the method 
of selection by the parents of the prospective candi¬ 
dates, as practised by the French and other savage 


50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 

80 


160 READING AND THINKING 

tribes, on the basis of the social and economic fac- 
85 tors involved, to the exclusion of the physical char¬ 
acteristics of the two individuals. It means giving 
up any smug and tacit pretence that marriage in the 
vast majority of instances is entered into for any¬ 
thing else than to beget progeny. 

90 6. Now, of course, I’m not a fool. This state¬ 

ment will probably cause more dissent than any other 
one in this book. But nevertheless it is true. I re¬ 
peat, I am not a fool. I know perfectly well that no 
such arrangement as I have implied above is going 
95 to be brought about. Men are not going to embrace 
eugenics. They are going to embrace the first likely, 
trim-figured girl with limpid eyes and flashing teeth 
who comes along, in spite of the fact that her germ 
plasm is probably reeking with hypertension, cancer, 
ioo haemophilia, color blindness, hay-fever, epilepsy, and 
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. This represents a 
deep piece of sardony on the part of nature : I do not 
believe she ever intended man to become a long-lived 
race. It is an actual fact that those people who have 
105 all of these terrible excrescences ready to break out 
are in youth the loveliest of the sons and daughters 
of men: they are charming, jovial, fun-loving, laugh- 
provoking, filled eternally with a kind of divine 
ecstasy; and then their bodies—there is a sort of 
no ethereal transparency to their skin, there hangs about 
them an unearthly—well, I mustn’t go on like this. 

7. But if we could disregard love, disregard 
physical attractiveness—if I had the power to breed 
men and women as I liked, I could, in about five cen- 
listuries, produce a race of men whose average dura¬ 
tion of life would be two hundred and fifty years, and 
another race who would die of senility—bald, tooth- 


tOGAN CLENDENING 161 

less, and blind—at the age of fifteen. I could pro¬ 
duce a race of tall, enormously strong, shaggy-haired 
men, and another of small, shy, absolutely hairless 
men. I could produce a race of women who would 
have a long purple plume growing from their fore¬ 
heads, and hanging to their heels, and a race of men 
with two enormous bright scales over their ears. 
Perhaps it is well that no such power can ever be 
delegated to any man. People are funny enough as 
it is. 

8. “Is this then all?” as someone remarked on 
some historical occasion. Can nothing be done for 
the people who are actually in the land of the living? 
Perhaps a little. That one tenth of a year increase 
in life expectancy for the individual who has reached 
35 probably means something—diet, exercise, baths, 
rest-periods, no strain, etc. If you follow very care¬ 
fully the dictates of the Life Extension Institute, you 
can live on the average one month longer than you 
would otherwise. Which period you will spend in 
bed flat on your back, giving explicit instructions to 
the nurse as to whom you want for pallbearers. 

WORDS 

i. The following words, as used here, are doctors’ or 
biologists’ terms; they are, however, in such general use that 
you should know the meaning of each: “anatomy” (1. i), 
“physiology” (11. 1-2), “pathology” (1. 2), “heredity” (1. 3), 
“coagulate” (1. 17), “haemophilia” (1. 17), “microscopic” 
(11. 26-27), “tissue” (1. 27), “bacteriologic” (1. 27), “germ 
plasm” (1. 31), “senescence” (1. 45), “apoplexy” (1. 50), 
“Bright’s disease” ( 1 . 50), “functional” ( 1 . 59), “albumin.” 
(1. 60), “cancer” (1. 61), “susceptibility” (1. 73), “progeny” 


120 

125 

130 

135 


162 


READING AND THINKING 


(1. 89), “eugenics” (1. 96), “epilepsy” (1. 100), “senility” 
( 1 . 117), “life expectancy” ( 1 . 132). (A consideration of 
the sources of these words may suggest some ideas about the 
deadness of “dead” languages.) 

2. What is the etymological relationship between “prog¬ 
eny” ( 1 . 89) and “eugenics” ( 1 . 96) ? List other words 
formed on the same root. (Compare with question 11 under 
Zinsser on page 173.) 

3. Clendening doesn’t expect you to know the meaning 
of “amyotrophic lateral sclerosis” ( 1 . 101). Comment on 
its use with this in mind. 

4. “Sardony” ( 1 . 102) is apparently a neologism. You 
can get its meaning through the adjective “sardonic.” What 
is the more common noun form? 

5. “Mendelian recessive” ( 1 . 73), “Mendelian dominant” 
( 1 . 74). Your dictionary will make these terms adequately 
clear, under “Mendel.” It will also explain “unit factors” 
(11. 8-9). Compare “social and economic factors” ( 11 . 84- 
85 ). 

6. Distinguish “senescence” ( 1 . 45) and “senility” ( 1 . 117). 

7. Comment on the phrase “selecting out” ( 1 . 62). 

8. “Hypertension” ( 1 . 34) is defined in the extract. What 
does the prefix mean? 

9. Comment on the use of “riddled” ( 1 . 50) and “reeking” 
(h 99 ). 

10. Comment on the use of thing in the phrase “the thing 
called love” (1. 79). 

11. Define, as used here, “bizarre” ( 1 . 14), “verification” 
(11. 40-41), “spontaneously” (1. 63), “prospective” (1. 82), 
“smug” (1. 87), “tacit” (1. 87), “limpid” (1. 97), “ex¬ 
crescences” (1. 105), “ecstasy” (1. 109), “ethereal” (1. no), 
“delegated” (1. 126), “explicit” (1. 138). 


LOGAN CLENDENING 


163 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The topic of the extract might be stated as “Hereditary 
Tendencies in Human Diseases.” For each paragraph sum¬ 
marize in a short sentence the particular aspect of the topic 
therein developed. 

2. Point out and comment on the transitions between para¬ 
graphs. Which are implied and which explicit? 

3. Clendening’s book is designed to have popular appeal. 
One way in which he maintains a light tone is the use of 
humorous asides and puns. 

(a) Point out a sarcastic phrase so employed in the fifth 
paragraph, and indicate other examples. 

(b) Point out a word in the sixth paragraph used pun- 
ningly, and indicate other examples. 

4. In which paragraph does the discussion proceed by 
analogy? 

5. “But such is not the case” ( 1 . 8). Can you improve 
the phrasing? 

6. What are the two reasons for the inadequacy of most 
theories about the cause of high blood pressure? 

7. Do diseases obey Mendelian laws? 

8. Why is the application of human eugenics impracticable? 

9. What environmental influences on longevity are men¬ 
tioned ? 

10. “Pm not a fool” ( 1 . 90) ; “Well, I mustn’t go on like 
this” ( 1 . in) ; “People are funny enough as it is” ( 11 . 126- 
127). 

(a) What does each of these phrases tell you about the 
author ? 

(b) Show how each phrase relates to the subject matter 
with which it is concerned. 

(c) Show how each is used by the author as a kind of de¬ 
fense weapon against the reader. 


164 


READING AND THINKING 


II. “I do not believe she ever intended man to become a 
long-lived race” ( 11 . 102-104). How is this statement sup¬ 
ported ? 


SUGGESTED WORK 

1. Compare Clendening’s general point of view with 
Haldane’s (seep. 148). 

2. Compare Clendening’s ideas with Carrel’s (see p. 176). 

3. Compare Clendening’s description of hypothetical 
future races with Haldane’s (see p. 152) as to content and 
style. 

4. Write a statement of how you honestly feel about the 
attitude of Clendening on the welfare of the human race. 
For example, if you are shocked, does the shock arise from 
prejudice of some sort? 


HANS ZINSSER 


Hans Zinsser (1878— ) was born in New York and 

was educated at Columbia University. He received the 
M.D. at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York 
City, and was interne and bacteriologist at Roosevelt Hos¬ 
pital in the same city. After teaching at Physicians and 
Surgeons, at Stanford University, and at Columbia Univer¬ 
sity, he went as professor to the Harvard Medical School. 
He has served on commissions in Serbia and Russia, and has 
published much in bacteriology. The following extract is 
from Rats, Lice, and History, an attempt to interpret history 
in the light of science.* 


I. A rat census is obviously impossible. It is 
quite certain, however, that they breed more rapidly 
than they are destroyed in many places in the world. 
We can appraise the rat population only by the num¬ 
bers that are killed in organized rat campaigns and 5 
by the amount of destruction they cause. In about 
i860, Shipley tells us, there was a slaughterhouse 
for horses on Montfaucon, which it was planned to 
remove farther away from Paris. The carcasses of 
horses amounted to sometimes thirty-five a day, and 10 
were regularly cleaned up completely by rats in the 
following night. Dusaussois had the idea of trying 
to find out how many rats were engaged in this grue¬ 
some traffic. He set horse-meat bait in enclosures 
from which the exit of rats could be prevented, and 15 

*Rats, Lice, and History, by Hans Zinsser, an Atlantic Monthly 
Press publication. Reprinted by permission of Little, Brown & 
Company. 


165 




166 READING AND THINKING 

in the course of the first night killed 2650. By the 
end of a month, he had killed over 16,000. Shipley 
estimates that there are about forty million rats in 
England at one time. In 1881 there was a rat 
20 plague in certain districts of India. The crops of 
the preceding two years were below average and a 
large part of them had been destroyed by rats. Re¬ 
wards offered for rat destruction led to a killing of 
over 12,000,000 rats. Shipley estimates that a sin- 
25 gle rat does about 7s.6d. worth of damage in a year, 
which makes a charge of £15,000,000 upon Great 
Britain and Ireland. It costs about sixty cents to two 
dollars a year to feed a rat on grain. Every rat on a 
farm costs about fifty cents a year. Lantz adds to 
30 this that hotel managers estimate five dollars a year 
as a low estimate of the loss inflicted by a rat. He 
thinks that in the thickly populated parts of the coun¬ 
try an estimate of one rat per acre is not excessive, 
and that in most of our cities there are as many rats 
35 as people. He investigated, in 1909, the approxi¬ 
mate total damage by rats in the cities of Washing¬ 
ton and Baltimore. From the data he obtained, he 
calculated the annual damage in the two cities as 
amounting to $400,000 and $700,000 respectively— 
40 which, considering the populations, amounted to an 
average loss of $1.27 a year per person. On the 
same basis, the urban population of the United 
States, at that time 28,000,000 people, sustained an 
annual direct injury of $35,000,000 a year. In Den- 
45 mark, the estimated rat cost is about $1.20 a per¬ 
son; in Germany, eighty-five cents a person; in 
France, a little over a dollar. Add to this the in¬ 
estimable depreciation of property and the costs of 
protection. 


HANS ZINSSER 


167 


2 . All this has nothing to do with our main sub- 50 
ject, but we were started on rats, and it is just as well 
to give thought to the problem of what rat extermi¬ 
nation for sanitary purposes is likely to mean in 
other respects. 

3. The tremendous speed with which rats swarmed 55 
over the continents of the world can be readily un¬ 
derstood if one reads the observations of actual rat 
migrations made in modern times. The seasonal 
migration of rats from buildings to the open fields 
takes place with the coming of the warm weather 60 
and the growth of vegetation; and a return to shel¬ 
ter follows with the cold weather. Doctor Lantz 
tells us that in 1903 hordes of rats migrated over 
several counties in western Illinois, suddenly appear¬ 
ing when for several years no abnormal numbers 65 
had been seen. An eyewitness stated to Lantz that, 
as he was returning to his home on a moonlight night, 
he heard a rustling in a near-by field, and saw a great 
army of rats cross the road in front of him. The 
army of rats stretched away as far as he could see in 70 
the moonlight. This, to be sure, was before the 
Eighteenth Amendment, but there must have been 
some fact behind it, since heavy damage was caused 
by rats in the entire surrounding country of farms 
and villages in the ensuing winter and summer. On 75 
one farm, in the month of April, about 3500 rats 
were caught in traps. Lantz himself saw a similar 
migration in the valley of the Kansas River, in 1904; 
and Lantz, being at that time an officer and gentle¬ 
man of the United States Agricultural Service, can-so 
not be under the suspicion that is aroused by ac¬ 
counts of armies of rats seen by moonshine. In 
England, a general movement of rats inland from 


168 READING AND THINKING 

the coast occurs every October, and this migration 
85 is connected with the closing of the herring season. 
During the herring catch, rats swarm all over the 
coast, attracted by the food supply of herring clean¬ 
ing; when it is over, they go back to their regular 
haunts. In South America, Lantz advises us, rat 
90 plagues are periodic in Parana, in Brazil, and occur 
at intervals of about thirty years. In Chile, the 
same thing has been observed, at intervals of fifteen 
to twenty-five years. Studies of these migrations 
have shown that the rat plagues are associated with 
95 the ripening and decay of a dominant species of 
bamboo in each country. For a year or two, the 
ripening seed in the forests supplies a favorite food 
for the rats. They multiply enormously, and even¬ 
tually, this food supply failing, they go back to the 
ioo cultivated areas. A famine was caused in 1878 in 
the state of Parana by the wholesale destruction of 
the corn, rice, and mandioca crops by rats. The in¬ 
vasion of Bermuda by rats in 1615, and their sud¬ 
den disappearance, are as dramatic as the rise and 
105 fall of some of the short-lived Indian empires of 
Central and South America. Black rats appeared 
in that year, and within the two following ones in¬ 
creased with alarming rapidity. They devoured 
fruits, plants, and trees to such an extent that a 
110 famine resulted, and a law required every man in 
the islands to keep twelve traps set. Nothing, how¬ 
ever, was of any use, until finally the rats disap¬ 
peared with a suddenness that makes it almost neces¬ 
sary to assume that they died of a pestilence. 

115 4. As we have indicated in a preceding paragraph, 

the natural history of the rat is tragically similar to 
that of man. Offspring of widely divergent evolu- 


HANS ZINSSER 


169 


tionary directions, men and rats reached present 
stages of physical development within a few hun¬ 
dred thousand years of each other—since remnants 
of both are found in the fossils of the glacial period. 

5. Some of the more obvious qualities in which 
rats resemble men—ferocity, omnivorousness, and 
adaptability to all climates—have been mentioned 
above. We have also alluded to the irresponsible 
fecundity with which both species breed at all sea¬ 
sons of the year with a heedlessness of consequences 
which subjects them to wholesale disaster on the in¬ 
evitable, occasional failure of the food supply. In 
this regard, it is only fair to state—in justice to man 
—that, as far as we can tell, the rat does this of its 
own free and stupid gluttony, while man has tradi¬ 
tion, piety, and the duty of furnishing cannon fod¬ 
der to contend with, in addition to his lower instincts. 
But these are, after all, phenomena of human 
biology, and man cannot be absolved of responsi¬ 
bility for his stupidities because they are the results 
of wrong-headedness rather than the consequences 
of pure instinct—certainly not if they result in iden¬ 
tical disasters. 

6. Neither rat nor man has achieved social, com¬ 
mercial, or economic stability. This has been, either 
perfectly or to some extent, achieved by ants and by 
bees, by some birds, and by some of the fishes in the 
sea. Man and the rat are merely, so far, the most 
successful animals of prey. They are utterly de¬ 
structive of other forms of life. Neither of them 
is of the slightest earthly use to any other species of 
living things. Bacteria nourish plants; plants nour¬ 
ish man and beast. Insects, in their well-organized 
societies, are destructive of one form of living crea- 


120 

125 

130 

135 

140 

145 

150 


170 


READING AND THINKING 


ture, but helpful to another. Most other animals 
are content to lead peaceful and adjusted lives, re¬ 
joicing in vigor, grateful for this gift of living, and 
155 doing the minimum of injury to obtain the things 
they require. Man and the rat are utterly destruc¬ 
tive. All that nature offers is taken for their own 
purposes, plant or beast. 

7. Gradually these two have spread across the 
160 earth, keeping pace with each other and unable to 

destroy each other, though continually hostile. 
They have wandered from East to West, driven by 
their physical needs, and—unlike any other species 
of living things—have made war upon their own 
165 kind. The gradual, relentless, progressive extermi¬ 
nation of the black rat by the brown has no parallel 
in nature so close as that of the similar extermina¬ 
tion of one race of man by another. Did the Danes 
conquer England; or the Normans the Saxon-Danes; 
170 or the Normans the Sicilian-Mohammedans; or the 
Moors the Latin-Iberians; or the Franks the Moors; 
or the Spanish the Aztecs and the Incas; or the Euro¬ 
peans in general the simple aborigines of the world 
by qualities other than those by which Mus decuma - 
175 nus has driven out Mus rattus? In both species, the 
battle has been pitilessly to the strong. And the 
strong have been pitiless. The physically weak have 
been driven before the strong—annihilated, or con¬ 
strained to the slavery of doing without the bounties 
iso which were provided for all equally. Isolated colo¬ 
nies of black rats survive, as weaker nations survive 
until the stranger ones desire the little they still 
possess. 

8 . The rat has an excuse. As far as we know, it 
185 does not appear to have developed a soul, or that 


HANS ZINSSER 171 

intangible quality of justice, mercy, and reason that 
psychic evolution has bestowed upon man. We must 
not expect too much. It takes a hundred thousand 
years to alter the protuberances on a bone, the direc¬ 
tion of a muscle; much longer than this to develop a 
lung from a gill, or to atrophy a tail. It is only 
about twenty-five hundred years since Plato, Buddha, 
and Confucius; only two thousand years since Christ. 
In the meantime, we have had Homer and Saint Fran¬ 
cis, Copernicus and Galileo; Shakespeare, Pascal, 
Newton, Goethe, Bach, and Beethoven, and a great 
number of lesser men and women of genius who have 
demonstrated the evolutionary possibilities of the 
human spirit. If such minds have been rare, and 
spread thinly over three thousand years, after all 
they still represent the sports that indicate the high 
possibilities of fortunate genetic combinations. 
And these must inevitably increase if the environ¬ 
ment remains at all favorable. If no upward prog¬ 
ress in spirit or intelligence seems apparent, let us 
say, between the best modern minds and that of 
Aristotle, we must remember that, in terms of evo¬ 
lutionary change, three thousand years are negligible. 
If, as in the last war and its subsequent imbecilities, 
mankind returns completely to the rat stage of civi¬ 
lization, this surely shows how very rudimentary an 
emergence from the Neanderthal our present civ¬ 
ilization represents—how easily the thin, spiritual 
veneer is cracked under any strain that awakens the 
neolithic beast within. Nevertheless, for perhaps 
three or five thousand years, the beast has begun to 
ponder and grope. Isolated achievements have 
demonstrated of what the mind and spirit are capa¬ 
ble when a happy combination of genes occurs under 


190 

195 

200 

205 

210 

215 


172 


READING AND THINKING 


22ocircumstances that permit the favored individual to 
mature. And the most incomprehensible but hope¬ 
ful aspect of the matter is the fact that successive 
generations have always bred an adequate number 
of individuals sufficiently superior to the brutal mass 
225 to keep alive a reverence for these supreme achieve¬ 
ments and make them a cumulative heritage. It is 
more than likely—biologically considered—that by 
reason of this progressive accumulation of the best 
that superior specimens of our species have produced, 
230 the evolution toward higher things may gain velocity 
with time, and that in another hundred thousand 
years the comparison of the race of men with that of 
rats may be less humiliatingly obvious. 

9. Man and the rat will always be pitted against 
235 each other as implacable enemies. And the rat’s 
most potent weapons against mankind have been its 
perpetual maintenance of the infectious agents of 
plague and of typhus fever. 


WORDS 

1. The following are technical terms often used by the 
student of natural history; be sure that you know the mean¬ 
ing of each: “seasonal” (1. 58), “dominant species” (1. 95), 
“pestilence” (1. 114), “fossils” (1. 121), “glacial period” 
(1. 121), “adaptability” (1. 124), “lower instincts” (1. 134), 
“bacteria” (1. 149), “aborigines” (1. 173), “colonies” (11. 
180-181), “atrophy” (1. 191), “sports” (1. 201), “environ¬ 
ment” ( 1 . 203), “rudimentary” ( 1 . 211), “Neanderthal” 
(1. 212), “neolithic” (1. 215), “biologically” (1. 227), “evo¬ 
lution” (1. 230), “infectious” (1. 237), “plague” (1. 238), 
“typhus” (1. 238). 


HANS ZINSSER 


173 


2. Notice the frequent use of “this” throughout the selec¬ 
tion and comment on its suitability. 

3. “Urban” ( 1 . 42). How are “suburban” and “urbane” 
derived from this word? 

4. Distinguish the meanings of “migration” ( 1 . 59), “im¬ 
migration,” and “emigration.” 

5. Note the word “phenomena” ( 1 . 135). 

(a) What is the singular form of this word? 

(b) What other words have a similar plural? 

(c) How is the common meaning of “phenomenal” de¬ 
rived ? 

6. What is the distinction between “social,” “commercial,” 
and “economic” (11. 141-142)? 

7. What are the special meanings here of “earthly” 
(1. 148) and “bounties” (1. 179)? 

8. “Pitilessly” ( 1 . 176) and “pitiless” ( 1 . 177) represent 
a play on words. Explain. 

9. “Moonshine” ( 1 . 82) is an example of double-entendre . 
Explain. 

10. Look up the etymology of “omnivorousness” ( 1 . 123). 

(a) What does the root mean when combined with the 
prefixes “carni” and “herbi”? 

(b) Can you explain the word “bus”? 

11. “Genetic” ( 1 . 202), “genes” ( 1 . 219), “generations” 
( 1 . 223). These words spring from the same root. 

(a) Show the relationship. 

(b) Can you account for “genius,” “genesis,” and 
“genial” ? Compare “eugenics.” 

12. What verb is formed from the root of “implacable” 

(i. 235)? 


174 


READING AND THINKING 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. “All this has nothing to do with our main subject” 

(ii. 50-51). 

(a) What is the main subject? 

(b) What is the main subject of this selection? 

(c) How does the rest of the sentence serve to unify the 
first and third paragraphs and to connect both with 
the whole selection? 

2 . Beginning with the fourth paragraph, indicate in a 
short sentence for each one the subject matter of each para¬ 
graph. 

3. Indicate the transitions between paragraphs, beginning 
with the fifth paragraph. 

4. What is the key sentence of the sixth paragraph? 
What is the effect of its repetition? 

5. The last sentence of the extract is a transitional sen¬ 
tence. What is to be the subject of what follows? 

6. The first and third paragraphs are summaries of ma¬ 
terial from two authorities—Shipley and Lantz. 

(a) Point out how, and how often, Zinsser refers to his 
sources. 

(b) List the facts taken from each. 

(c) Is there any material which has the appearance of not 
coming from these two sources? 

7. “Psychic evolution” ( 1 . 187) suggests the other side of 
the picture, physical evolution. Where in the selection is 
the latter discussed, and to what effect? 

8. What is the sense of “tragically” in “is tragically simi¬ 
lar” ( 1 . 116) ? What evidence is used to support the idea of 
tragedy ? 

9. List the characteristics which, according to Zinsser, man 
and rat have in common. How do they differ? 

10. Why is it “almost necessary to assume” ( 11 . 113-114) ? 


HANS ZINSSER 


175 


11. What idea is implied by “widely divergent evolution¬ 
ary directions” (11. 117-118)? 

12. Why is a failure of food supply “inevitable” ( 11 . 128- 
129)? 

13. What does Zinsser intend to suggest by “the last war 
and its subsequent imbecilities” (1. 209) ? 

14. The historical examples in the seventh paragraph de¬ 
pend upon the meaning of the word “conquer.” What 
questions would a historian or anthropologist raise? 

15. “The rat has an excuse” ( 1 . 184) is an ironical state¬ 
ment. Explain and point out another ironical sentence. 

16. The eighth paragraph lists the heroes of humanity. 

(a) Would you change the list? (Be sure you know for 
what each is famous.) 

(b) Compare a similar list in the selection from Haldane. 

17. In what sense are “gluttony” ( 1 . 132) and “piety” 

(1. 133) made parallel? 


SUGGESTED WORK 

1. What famous theory is based on the food supply situa¬ 
tion mentioned in the fifth paragraph? (Look up Malthus.) 

2. Read Matthew Arnold’s essay Numbers and compare 
it with the eighth paragraph. 

3. Read T. H. Huxley’s essay Evolution and Ethics and 
compare with Zinsser’s idea. 

4. Compare Zinsser’s notion of the future of humanity 
with Haldane’s (see p. 152) and Clendening’s (see p. 160). 


ALEXIS CARREL 


Alexis Carrel (1873- ) was born at Sainte Foy les 

Lyon, France, and was educated at Dijon and Lyon, receiv¬ 
ing the M.D. degree at the latter place. He came to 
America in 1905 to the Rockefeller Institute, where he has 
had a brilliant career as medical researcher and surgeon. 
He won the Nobel Prize in 1912. The following extract is 
from Man the Unknown, a scientific, speculative work which 
is the summation of Carrel’s long and distinguished career 
in medicine.* 


I. Human beings are not good subjects for scien¬ 
tific investigation. One does not easily find people 
with identical characteristics. It is almost impossi¬ 
ble to verify the results of an experiment by refer- 
5 ring the subject to a sufficiently similar control. Let 
us suppose, for example, that we wish to compare 
two methods of education. For such a study we 
choose two groups of children, as nearly alike as pos¬ 
sible. If these children, although of the same age 
10 and the same size, belong *0 different social classes, 
if their food is not the same, if they live in different 
psychological atmospheres, the results cannot be 
compared. In a like manner, the effects of two 
modes of life on children belonging to one family 
15 have little value. For, human races not being pure, 
there are often profound differences between the off¬ 
spring of the same parents. On the contrary, the 

♦Reprinted by permission of Harper & Brothers. 


176 




ALEXIS CARREL 


177 


results will be conclusive when the children, whose 
behavior is compared under different conditions, are 
twins from a single ovum. We are generally 
obliged to be content with approximate information. 
This is one of the factors that have impeded the 
progress of the science of man. 

2. In researches dealing with physics and chemis¬ 
try, and also with physiology, one always attempts to 
isolate relatively simple systems, and to determine 
their exact conditions. But when the human being 
has to be studied as an entirety, and in his relations 
with his environment, such a limitation of the subject 
is impossible. The observer must be endowed with 
sound judgment in order not to lose his way in the 
complexity of the facts. The difficulties become al¬ 
most insurmountable in retrospective investigations. 
Such studies require a very experienced mind. Of 
course, we should as rarely as possible utilize the con¬ 
jectural science which is called history. But there 
have been in the past certain events, revealing the 
existence in man of extraordinary potentialities. A 
knowledge of the genesis of these qualities would be 
of great importance. What factors caused, during 
the epoch of Pericles, the simultaneous appearance 
of so many geniuses? A similar event occurred at 
the time of the Renaissance. Whence sprang the 
immense expansion, not only of intelligence, scientific 
imagination, and esthetic intuition, but also of physi¬ 
cal vigor, audacity, and the spirit of adventure in the 
men of this period? Why did they possess such 
mighty physiological and mental activities? One 
easily realizes how useful would be precise informa¬ 
tion regarding the mode of life, the food, the edu¬ 
cation, the intellectual, moral, esthetic, and religious 


20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 

50 


178 


READING AND THINKING 


surroundings of the people who lived during the time 
immediately preceding the appearance of a pleiad of 
great men. 

55 3. Another cause of the difficulties in experiment¬ 

ing on human beings is the fact that the observer and 
his subject live at about the same rhythm. The 
effects of a certain diet, of an intellectual or moral 
discipline, of political or social changes, are felt but 
60 slowly. It is only after a lapse of thirty or forty 
years that the value of an educational method can be 
estimated. The influence of a given mode of living 
upon the physiological and mental activities of a hu¬ 
man group does not manifest itself before a genera- 
65 tion has passed. Inventors of new systems of diet, 
physical culture, hygiene, education, morals, social 
economy, are always too early in publishing the suc¬ 
cess of their own inventions. It is only now that the 
result of the Montessori system, or of the educa- 
70 tional principles of John Dewey, could be profitably 
analyzed. We should wait another quarter of a cen¬ 
tury to know the significance of the intelligence tests 
which psychologists have made in the schools during 
these past years. The only way to ascertain the 
75 effect of a given factor on man is to follow a great 
number of individuals through the vicissitudes of 
their life right up to their death. And even then 
the knowledge thus obtained will be grossly approxi¬ 
mate. 

so 4. The progress of humanity appears to us to be 
very slow because we, the observers, are units of the 
herd. Each one of us can make but few observa¬ 
tions. Our life is too short. Many experiments 
should be conducted for a century at the least. In- 
85 stitutions should be established in such a way that 


ALEXIS CARREL 


179 


observations and experiments commenced by one 
scientist would not be interrupted by his death. 
Such organizations are still unknown in the realm of 
science. But they already exist in other lines of 
endeavor. In the monastery of Solesmes three suc¬ 
cessive generations of Benedictine monks have de¬ 
voted themselves, over a period of about fifty-five 
years, to the reconstruction of Gregorian music. A 
similar method should be applied to the investiga¬ 
tion of certain problems of human biology. Institu¬ 
tions, in some measure immortal, like religious 
orders, which would allow the uninterrupted continu¬ 
ation of an experiment as long as might be necessary, 
should compensate for the too short duration of the 
existence of individual observers. 

5. Certain data, urgently needed, can be procured 
with the help of short-lived animals. For this pur¬ 
pose, mice and rats have been chiefly used. Colo¬ 
nies consisting of many thousands of these animals 
have been employed to study different diets, their in¬ 
fluence on the rapidity of growth, on size, disease, 
longevity, etc. Unfortunately, rats and mice have 
only very remote analogies with man. It is dan¬ 
gerous, for example, to apply to children, whose con¬ 
stitution is so different, conclusions of researches 
made on these animals. Besides, the mental states 
accompanying anatomical and functional changes in 
bones, tissues, and humors under the influence of 
food and mode of life, cannot be properly investi¬ 
gated on such low types of animals. By observing 
more intelligent animals, such as monkeys and dogs, 
one would obtain more detailed and important infor¬ 
mation. 

6. Monkeys, despite their cerebral development, 


90 

.95 

100 

■ 105 

, 110 

; 115 


180 READING AND THINKING 

120 are not good subjects for experimentation. Their 
pedigree is not available. They cannot be bred 
easily or in sufficiently large numbers. They are dif¬ 
ficult to handle. On the contrary, intelligent dogs 
can be procured readily. Their ancestral character- 
125 istics are easily traced. Such animals propagate 
rapidly. They mature in a year. Generally, they 
do not live beyond fifteen years. Detailed psycho¬ 
logical observations can be made without trouble, 
especially on shepherd dogs, which are sensitive, in- 
130 telligent, alert, and attentive. With the aid of these 
animals of pure breed, and in sufficient number, the 
complex and important problem of the influence of 
environment on the individual could be elucidated. 
For example, we should ascertain whether the in- 
135 crease in stature, which is taking place in the popula¬ 
tion of the United States, is an advantage or a dis¬ 
advantage. It is also imperative to know what 
effect modern life and food have on the nervous sys¬ 
tem of children, and on their intelligence, alertness, 
140 and audacity. An extensive experiment carried out 
on several hundred dogs over a period of twenty 
years would give some precise information on these 
subjects, which are of paramount importance to mil¬ 
lions of people. It would indicate, more rapidly 
145 than the observation of human beings, in what direc¬ 
tion the diet and mode of living of the population 
should be changed. Such study would effectively 
supplement the incomplete and brief experiments 
which now appear to satisfy nutrition specialists. 
150 However, the observation of even the highest type 
of animal cannot entirely replace that of man. In 
order to develop definitive knowledge, experiments 
on groups of human beings should be started under 


ALEXIS CARREL 


181 


such conditions that they could be continued by sev¬ 
eral generations of scientists. 

WORDS 

1. The following words are common in the scientist’s 
vocabulary; look up the meaning of each: “ovum” (1. 20), 
“isolate” (1. 26), “data” (1. 101), “analogies” (1. 108), 
“anatomical” (1. 112), “functional” (1. 112), “humors” 
(1. 113), “cerebral” (1. 119). 

2. Define “control” ( 1 . 5) as used here in the scientific 
sense. 

3. What is the precise difference between “methods” ( 1 . 7) 
and “modes” (1. 14) ? 

4. Give two meanings for “pleiad” ( 1 . 53). 

5. Explain the phrase “esthetic intuition” (1. 45). 

6. “Control” ( 1 . 5), “conclusive” ( 1 . 18), “complexity” 
(1. 32), “conjectural” (11. 35~36), and “compensate” (1. 99) 
illustrate different spellings of the same prefix. Look up 
the meaning of this prefix and learn when each form is used. 

7. Define, as used in the extract, “identical” ( 1 . 3), 
“retrospective” (1. 33), “potentialities” (1. 38), “audacity” 
(1. 46), “vicissitudes” (1. 76), “longevity” (1. 107), “eluci¬ 
dated” (1. 133), “definitive” (1. 152). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. What do you observe about the length and structure of 
Carrel’s sentences? Comment. Compare Santayana’s (see 
p. 207) or Macaulay’s (see p. 42). 

2. Only one paragraph is joined to the one preceding by 
an obvious transition word. Point it out. Defend your 
opinion about whether or not the other paragraph transitions 
are satisfactory. 

3. Are the inhabitants of the United States increasing in 
stature ? 


182 


READING AND THINKING 


4. What sentence best sums up the thought of the extract ? 

5. Carrel enumerates three impediments to the scientific 
investigation of human beings. Indicate the three sentences 
in which they are summarized. 

6. “Control” ( 1 . 5) is a key word for the first-named diffi¬ 
culty. Why ? 

7. Under what circumstances is a control available, so that 
the results are conclusive? 

8. “Isolate” ( 1 . 26) might serve for the second difficulty. 
Explain. 

9. Does Carrel suggest a solution? 

10. Suggest a word for the third difficulty. 

11. What example is given to illustrate it? 

12. What means might be used to overcome it? What 
illustration shows the means to be practical? 

13. “Analogy” might serve as a key word for Carrel’s 
discussion of how the third difficulty is partially overcome. 
Explain. 

14. Why is history called a “conjectural science” ( 11 . 35- 

36 )? 

15. Why is the dog superior to the monkey for purposes 
of experimentation? 

16. What is the “Montessori system” ( 1 . 69) ? Who is 
“John Dewey” ( 1 . 70) ? 


EDITH WHARTON 


Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was born in New York into 
a wealthy and socially aristocratic family and was educated 
privately at home. After a somewhat unsatisfactory mar¬ 
riage into an equally wealthy and aristocratic Boston family, 
she went to France, where she lived throughout her life and 
where she began her long and distinguished career as a novel¬ 
ist. The House of Mirth was her first success, but she had 
many others, notably Ethan Frome. No one has better inter¬ 
preted certain aspects of American life. At her death she 
was regarded as one of our foremost literary figures and a 
master of her craft. The following extract is from her 
autobiography, A Backward Glance * 


I. In the birth of fiction, it is sometimes the situa¬ 
tion, the “case,” which first presents itself, and some¬ 
times the characters who appear, asking to be fitted 
into a situation. It is hard to say what conditions 
are likely to give the priority to one or the other, and 5 
I doubt if fiction can be usefully divided into novels 
of situation and of character, since a novel, if worth 
anything at all, is always both, in inextricable com¬ 
bination. In my own case a situation sometimes 
occurs to me first, and sometimes a single figure sud-10 
denly walks into my mind. If the situation takes 
the lead, I leave it lying about, as it were, in a quiet 
place, and wait till the characters creep stealthily up 
and wriggle themselves into it. All I seem to have 

♦Reprinted by permission of D. Appleton-Century Company. 

183 




184 READING AND THINKING 

15done is to say, at the outset: “This thing happened 
—but to whom?” Then I wait, holding my breath, 
and one by one the people appear and take posses¬ 
sion of the case. When it happens the other way, 
I may be strolling about casually in my mind, and 
20 suddenly a character will start up, coming seemingly 
from nowhere. Again, but more breathlessly, I 
watch; and presently the character draws nearer, 
and seems to become aware of me, and to feel the 
shy but desperate need to unfold his or her tale. I 
25 cannot say in which way a subject is most likely to 
present itself—though perhaps in short stories the 
situation, in novels one of the characters, generally 
appears first. 

2 . But this is not the most interesting point of 
30 the adventure. Compared with what follows it is 

not interesting at all, though it has, in my case, one 
odd feature I have not heard of elsewhere—that is, 
that my characters always appear with their names. 
Sometimes these names seem to me affected, some* 
35 times almost ridiculous; but I am obliged to own that 
they are never fundamentally unsuitable. And the 
proof that they are not, that they really belong to 
the people, is the difficulty I have in trying to substi¬ 
tute other names. For many years the attempt ai¬ 
rways ended fatally; any character I unchristened in¬ 
stantly died on my hands, as if it were some kind of 
sensitive crustacean, and the name it brought with it 
were its shell. Only gradually, and in very few 
cases, have I gained enough mastery over my crea- 
45 tures to be able to effect the change; and even now, 
when I do, I have to resort to hypodermics and 
oxygen, and not always successfully. 

3. These names are hardly ever what I call “real 


EDITH WHARTON 


185 


names,” that is, the current patronymics one would 
find in an address-book or a telephone directory; and 
it is their excessive oddness which often makes me 
try to change them. When in a book by someone 
else I meet people called by current names I always 
say to myself: “Ah, those names were tied on after¬ 
ward”; and I often find that the characters thus 
labelled are less living than the others. Yet there 
seems to be no general rule, for in the case of certain 
famous novelists whose characters have out-of-the- 
way names, many are tied on too. Balzac had to 
hunt the streets of Paris for names on shop-signs; 
and Thackeray and Trollope bent their genius to the 
invention of the most labored and dreary pleasantries 
in the pointless attempt to characterize their people 
in advance. Yet Captain Deuceace and the Rev. 
Mr. Quiverful are alive enough, and I can only sup¬ 
pose that this odd fact of the pre-named characters 
is a peculiarity of my own mental make-up. But I 
often wonder how the novelist whose people arrive 
without names manages to establish relations with 
them! 

4. A still more spectral element in my creative life 
is the sudden appearance of names without charac¬ 
ters. Several times, in this way, a name to which I 
can attach no known association of ideas has forced 
itself upon me in a furtive shadowy way, not succeed¬ 
ing in making its bearer visible, yet hanging about 
obstinately for years in the background of my 
thoughts. The Princess Estradina was such a name. 
I knew nothing of its origin, and still less of the 
invisible character to whom it presumably belonged. 
Who was she, what were her nationality, her history, 
her claims on my attention? She must have been 


50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 

80 


186 


READING AND THINKING 


there, lurking and haunting me, for years before she 
walked into The Custom of the Country, in high- 
85 colored flesh and blood, cool, dominant and thor¬ 
oughly at home. Another such character haunts me 
today.- Her name is still odder: Laura Testvalley. 
How I should like to change that name ! But it has 
been attached for some time now to a strongly out- 
90 lined material form, the form of a character figuring 
largely in an adventure I know all about, and have 
long wanted to relate. Several times I have tried 
to give Miss Testvalley another name, since the one 
she bears, should it appear ever in print, will be even 
95 more troublesome to my readers than to me. But 
she is strong-willed, and even obstinate, and turns 
sulky and unmanageable whenever I hint at the ad¬ 
vantages of a change; and I foresee that she will 
eventually force her way into my tale burdened with 
ioo her impossible patronymic. 

5. But this is a mere parenthesis; what I want to 
try to capture is an impression of the elusive moment 
when these people who haunt my brain actually begin 
to speak within me with their own voices. The situ- 
losating of my tale, and its descriptive and narrative 
portions, I am conscious of conducting, though often 
unaware of how the story first came to me, pleading 
to be told; but as soon as the dialogue begins, I be¬ 
come merely a recording instrument, and my hand 
110 never hesitates because my mind has not to choose, 
but only to set down what these stupid or intelligent, 
lethargic or passionate, people say to each other in a 
language, and with arguments, that appear to be all 
their own. It is because of this that I attach such 
115 importance to dialogue, and yet regard it as an effect 
to be sparingly used. By dialogue I do not mean 


EDITH WHARTON 


187 


the pages of “Yes” and “No,” of platitudes and 
repetitions, of which most actual talk is composed, 
and which any writer with a photographic mind and 
a good memory can set down by the yard (and does, 
in most modern fiction). The vital dialogue is that 
exchanged by characters whom their creator has 
really vitalized, and his instinct will be to record only 
the significant passages of their talk, in high relief 
against the narrative, and not uselessly embedded in 
it. 

6 . These moments of high tension, when the crea¬ 
ture lives and its creator listens to it, have nothing 
in common with the “walking away with the sub¬ 
ject,” the “settling it in their own way,” with which 
some novelists so oddly charge their characters. It 
is always a necessity to me that the note of inevitable¬ 
ness should be sounded at the very opening of my 
tale, and that my characters should go forward to 
their ineluctable doom like the “murdered man” in 
The Pot of Basil . From the first I know exactly 
what is going to happen to every one of them; their 
fate is settled beyond rescue, and I have but to watch 
and record. When I read that great novelists like 
Dickens and Trollope “killed off” a character, or 
changed the conclusion of a tale, in response to the 
request or the criticism of a reader, I am dumb¬ 
founded. What then was their own relation to their 
subject? But to show how mysterious and incalcu¬ 
lable the whole business is, one has only to remem¬ 
ber that Trollope “went home and killed” Mrs. 
Proudie because he had overheard some fool at his 
club complaining that she had lived long enough; 
and yet that the death scene thus arbitrarily brought 
about is one of the greatest pages he ever wrote, 


120 

125 

130 

135 

140 

145 

150 


188 


READING AND THINKING 


and places him momentarily on a level with Balzac 
and Tolstoy! 

7. But these people of mine, whose ultimate des¬ 
tiny I know so well, walk to it by ways unrevealed to 

155 me beforehand. Not only their speech, but what I 
might call their subsidiary action, seems to be their 
very own, and I am sometimes startled at the 
dramatic effect of a word or gesture which would 
never have occurred to me if I had been pondering 
160 over an abstract “situation,” as yet uninhabited by 
its “characters.” 

8 . I do not think I can get any nearer than this 
to the sources of my story-telling; I can only say that 
the process, though it takes place in some secret re- 

165 gion on the sheer edge of consciousness, is always 
illuminated by the full light of my critical attention. 
What happens there is as real and as tangible as my 
encounters with my friends and neighbors, often 
more so, though on an entirely different plane. It 
170 produces in me a great emotional excitement, quite 
unrelated to the joy or sorrow caused by real hap¬ 
penings, but as intense, and with as great an appear¬ 
ance of reality; and my two lives, divided between 
these equally real yet totally unrelated worlds, have 
175 gone on thus, side by side, equally absorbing, but 
wholly isolated from each other, ever since in my 
infancy I “read stories’’ aloud to myself out of 
Washington Irving’s Alhambra, which I generally 
held upside down. 

WORDS 

I. The following words are used in the selection with such 
special meanings as they would have for a professional writer 
or critic; give the meaning of each word from that point of 



EDITH WHARTON 


189 


view: “situation” (11. 1-2), “characters” (1. 3), “novels” 
(1. 6), “tale” (1. 24), “short stories” (1. 26), “adventure” 
(1. 30), “descriptive” (1. 105), “narrative” (1. 105), “vital¬ 
ized” (1. 123), “high relief” (1. 124), “note of inevitable¬ 
ness” (1. 132), “dramatic effect” (1. 158), “critical” (1. 166). 

2. The word case appears five times in the first three para¬ 
graphs. Examine its meaning and usage in each “case.” 

3. Is there any relationship between “elusive” ( 1 . 102) and 
“ineluctable” (1. 135)? 

4. List other words formed on the prefix of “patronymics” 

( 1 . 49 ). 

5. Contrast and compare “creative” ( 1 . 71), “creature” 
(11. 127-128), and “creator” (1. 122). 

6 . “Stupid” ( 1 . hi) is used as the opposite of “intelligent,” 
and “lethargic” (1. 112) of “passionate.” 

(a) What special meaning is thus implied for each word? 

(b) What other, common meanings has each word? 

7. Explain fully the meaning of the phrase “funda¬ 
mentally unsuitable” (1. 36). 

8. Define, as used in this extract, “priority” ( 1 . 5), “in¬ 
extricable” (1. 8), “affected” (1. 34), “crustacean” (1. 42), 
“spectral” (1. 71), “furtive” (1. 75), “current” (1. 53), 
“pleasantries” (1. 62), “platitudes” (1. 117), “subsidiary” 
(1. 156), “tangible” (1. 167), “plane” (169). 

9. Explain the use of quotation marks at various places. 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Show that the last paragraph sums up the extract. 

2. Show that the statement “I doubt if fiction can be use¬ 
fully divided into novels of situation and of character” is 
pertinent to the topic of the first paragraph. 

3. What is the key sentence of the first paragraph? 

4. The main topic of this extract is interrupted by a digres¬ 
sion. Indicate its beginning and ending. Why is it a 
justified part of the discussion? 


190 


READING AND THINKING 


5. In what sentence are you told that it is a digression? 

6. Indicate the passages in the fifth paragraph which 
justify the use of “these” in the first sentence of the sixth 
paragraph. 

7. What is the relationship between the fifth and seventh 
paragraphs? 

8. State as simply and directly as possible the idea figura¬ 
tively presented in the passage starting with “For many 
years the attempt always ended fatally” (11. 39-40) and 
extending to the end of the second paragraph. 

9. Point out the places where Mrs. Wharton subsequently 
uses the same fancy. 

10. List the words in the fourth and fifth paragraphs 
which echo the meaning of “spectral” (1. 71). 

11. “I become merely a recording instrument” (11. 108- 
109). How, elsewhere, does Mrs. Wharton qualify this 
statement? 

12. List the novelists mentioned by Mrs. Wharton, and 
comment upon the force of the references. 

13. Write from memory a concise summary of Mrs. Whar¬ 
ton’s observations about the names of characters. 

14. Which of the methods compared in the first paragraph 
does Mrs. Wharton prefer? What phrase indicates the 
preference ? 

15. In the fifth paragraph, dialogue is not ( a )-, but 

is (b) -. Fill in the blanks. 

16. Explain fully Mrs. Wharton’s “two lives” of the last 
paragraph. What are the resemblances and the differences? 

17. “I can only say that the process, though it takes place 
in some secret region on the sheer edge of consciousness, is 
always illuminated by the full light of my critical attention” 
(11. 163-166). 

(a) Explain fully the meaning of this sentence. 

(b) Find at least ten phrases which state the idea of “the 
secret region on the sheer edge of consciousness.” 

(c) Find phrases which state the “critical attention” idea. 




EDITH WHARTON 191 

(d) Comment on the use here of “secret,” “sheer,” “full 
light.” 

18. You will have found by now that there are three lead¬ 
ing ideas here. To Mrs. Wharton— 

(a) Her characters are living human beings; 

(b) Her characters and stories come through her to the 
printed page almost as if she were a ventriloquist’s 
dummy or an automaton; 

(c) Her writing, nevertheless, is controlled by her critical 
faculty. 

Discuss these ideas in relation to what you know of fiction and 
•of writing methods. 


WALTER PATER 


Walter Pater (1839-1894) was educated at Kings, Can¬ 
terbury, and Queen’s College, Oxford. In youth he was 
excessively devoted to religion, but during his college course 
he decided to devote himself to teaching and study, a life 
well-suited to his somewhat frail physique and peculiar ap¬ 
pearance. He became absorbed in the Renaissance and thus 
in aesthetics in general, with the result that through his 
essays and studies he became the leader of the English 
aesthetic movement. Down to the World War his influence 
was tremendous. Pater had a fine analytic mind, worked 
slowly, and condensed his ideas. A good example is the 
Preface to his Studies in the History of the Renaissance, 
from which this extract is taken. 


i. Many attempts have been made by writers on 
art and poetry to define beauty in the abstract, to 
express it in the most general terms, to find a uni¬ 
versal formula for it. The value of these attempts 
5has most often been in the suggestive and penetrat¬ 
ing things said by the way. Such discussions help 
us very little to enj oy w hat has been well done in art 
or poetry, to discriminat e between what is more and 
what is less excellent in them, or_ to u se words like 
lobeauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise 
meaning than they would otherwise have. Beauty, 
like all other qualities presented to human expe¬ 
rience, is relative; and the definition of it becomes 
unmeaning and useless in proportion to its abstract- 
lsness. To define beauty, not in the most abstract, 


192 





WALTER PATER 


193 


but in the most concrete terms possible, to find, not 
a universal formula for it, but the formula which 
expresses most adequately this or that special mani¬ 
festation of it, is the aim of the true student of 
aesthetics. 

2. “To see the object as in itself it really is” has 
been justly said to be the aim of all true criticism 
whatever; and in aesthetic criticism the first step 
towards seeing one’s object as it really is, is to know 
one’s own impression as it really is, to discriminate 
it, to realize it distinctly. The objects with which 
aesthetic criticism deals—music, poetry, artistic and 
accomplished forms of human life—are indeed re¬ 
ceptacles of so many powers or forces: they possess, 
like the products of nature, so many virtues or quali¬ 
ties. What is this song or picture, this engaging 
personality presented in life or in a book, to me? 
What effect does it really produce on me? Does it 
give me pleasure? and if so, what sort or degree of 
pleasure? How is my nature modified by its pres¬ 
ence, and under its influence? The answers to these 
questions are the original facts with which the 
aesthetic critic has to do; and, as in the study of 
light, of morals, of number, one must realize such 
primary data for oneself, or not at all. And he who 
experiences these impressions strongly, and drives 
directly at the analysis and discrimination of them, 
has no need to trouble himself with the abstract ques¬ 
tion what beauty is in itself, or what its exact rela¬ 
tion to truth or experience—metaphysical questions, 
as unprofitable as metaphysical questions elsewhere. 
He may pass them all by as being, answerable or not, 
of no interest to him. 

3. The aesthetic critic, then, regards all the ob- 


20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


194 


READING AND THINKING 


sojects with which he has to do, all works of art, and 
the fairer forms of nature and human life, as powers 
or forces producing pleasurable sensations, each of 
a more or less peculiar or unique kind. This in¬ 
fluence he feels, and wishes to explain, analyzing it, 
55 and reducing it to its elements. To him, the pic¬ 
ture, the landscape, the engaging personality in life 
or in a book, La Gioconda, the hills of Carrara, Pico 
of Mirandola, are valuable for their virtues, as we 
say, in speaking of a herb, a wine, a gem; for the 
60 property each has of affecting one with a special, a 
unique, impression of pleasure. Our education be¬ 
comes complete in proportion as our susceptibility to 
these impressions increases in depth and variety. 
And the function of the aesthetic critic is to distin- 
65 guish, analyze, and separate from its adjuncts, the 
virtue by which a picture, a landscape, a fair per¬ 
sonality in life or in a book, produces this special 
impression of beauty or pleasure, to indicate what 
the source of that impression is, and under what con- 
7 oditions it is experienced. His end is reached when 
he has disengaged that virtue, and noted it, as a 
chemist notes some natural element, for himself and 
others; and the rule for those who would reach this 
end is stated with great exactness in the words of a 
75 recent critic of Sainte-Beuve: De se borner a con- 
naitre de pres les belles choses, et a s y en nourrir en 
exquis amateurs, en humamstes accomplish 

4. What is important, then, is not that the critic 
should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty 
so for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, 

1 (To) limit themselves to an intimate knowledge of things beauti¬ 
ful and (to) feast their soul upon them, as might a keenly discrimi¬ 
native connoisseur, an accomplished humanist. 



WALTER PATER 


195 


the power of being deeply moved by the presence of 
beautiful objects. He will remember always that 
beauty exists in many forms. To him all periods, 
types, schools of taste, are in themselves equal. In 
all ages there have been some excellent workmen, 85 
and some excellent work done. The question he 
asks is always:—In whom did the stir, the genius, 
the sentiment of the period find itself? Where was 
the receptacle of its refinement, its elevation, its 
taste? “The ages are all equal,” says William 90 
Blake, “but genius is always above its age.” 


WORDS 

1. The following words are common in the critic’s vocabu¬ 
lary; define each: “formula” (1. 4), “suggestive” (1. 5), 
“penetrating” (1. 5), “discriminate” (1. 8), “qualities” (1 
12), “universal” (1. 17), “aesthetics” (1. 20), “justly’ 
(1. 22), “experiences” (1. 41), “analysis” (1. 42), “meta¬ 
physical” (1. 45), “refinement” (1. 89), “elevation” (1. 89), 
“taste” (1. 90). 

2. Pater implies that “beauty,” “excellence,” “art,” and 
“poetry” ( 1 . 10) are difficult to define. What are the usual 
definitions? 

3. “Accomplished” ( 1 . 28) and “fair” ( 1 . 66) are used 
by Pater in a sense peculiar to him. What is the meaning 
of each as used here? 

4. Define and contrast fully “abstract” ( 1 . 15) and “con¬ 
crete” (1. 16). 

5. What are the usual terms for “light,” “morals,” and 
“number” (1. 39) ? 

6. Is “unique” ( 1 . 53) modified by “more or less”? 

7. Show how the meaning of “discriminate” ( 1 . 8) evolved 
from that of its Latin ancestor. What is its precise meaning 
here? 


196 


READING AND THINKING 


8. Define “engaging” as used in lines 31 and 56. 

9. Try to state in ten words what Pater means by “virtue” 

( 1 . 66 ). 

10. List other words formed from the root of “adjuncts” 

(1. 65). 

11. What is “criticism” ( 1 . 22) ? 

12. What is the meaning here of “receptacles” ( 11 . 28-29), 
“degree” (1. 34), “original” (1. 37), “disengaged” (1. 71), 
“receptacle” (1. 89) ? 


FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Point out a sentence which expresses the gist of the 
whole discussion. 

2. What questions are pertinent to the aesthetic critic’s 
purpose? What irrelevant? 

3. Why are those of the second group called metaphysical? 

4. Note the formal transition between the second and 
third, and the third and fourth paragraphs. Point out the 
transition between the first and second paragraphs. 

5. In what way is the quotation from Blake a suitable 
concluding sentence for the extract? 

6. Indicate the repetition of phrase which gives the first 
paragraph unity. 

7. Point out in the first paragraph three examples of 
parallelism secured by the use of infinitives. 

8. In the last sentence of the first paragraph find two 
instances of balanced structure. 

9. Why is an abstract definition of beauty unnecessary? 

10. What definition of beauty is implied throughout the 
discussion ? 

11. “This engaging personality presented in life or in a 
book” (11. 31-32). 

(a) Point out two repetitions of this phrase. 

(b) Point out an illustration of the phrase. 


WALTER PATER 


197 


(c) What is its relation to “artistic and accomplished 
forms of human life” (11. 27-28) ? 

12. “In whom did the stir, the genius, the sentiment of the 
period find itself?” ( 11 . 87-88). Justify the inclusion of 
“stir” in this series. Consider the etymology of “genius” 

(1. 91). 

13. Make up your own definition of the aesthetic critic. 

14. What hypotheses or assumptions is Pater making about 
literature and art? 


HENRY DAVID THOREAU 


Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), like Holmes and 
Hawthorne, was thoroughly a New Englander, but of the 
philosophic rural kind rather than the urbane Bostonian type 
or the Puritan. He was born at Concord, and was educated 
at Harvard. He taught for a time, but devoted most of his 
life to study—particularly of Oriental philosophy—and to 
the observation of nature. His writings were not popular 
in their own time but have become more and more influential, 
particularly in Europe. Thoreau was eccentric in manner 
and confined most of his life to the neighborhood of Concord, 
but intellectually he was a citizen of the world. At one 
time he conducted an experiment near Concord in solitary 
and self-sustaining living. It is from the record of that ven¬ 
ture, Walden , that the following extract is taken.* 


i. And when the farmer has got his house, he may 
not be the richer but the poorer for it, and it be the 
house that has got him. As I understand it, that 
was a valid objection urged by Momus against the 
5 house which Minerva made, that she “had not made 
it movable, by which means a bad neighborhood 
might be avoided;’’ and it may still be urged, for our 
houses are such unwieldy property that we are often 
imprisoned rather than housed in them; and the bad 
10 neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves. 
I know one or two families, at least, in this town, 

*This selection from Henry David Thoreau is used by permission 
of, and by arrangement with the publishers, Houghton Mifflin 
Company. 


198 




HENRY DAVID THOREAU 199 

who, for nearly a generation, have been wishing to 
sell their houses in the outskirts and move into the 
village, but have not been able to accomplish it, and 
only death will set them free. 

2. Granted that the majority are able at last either 
to own or hire the modern house with all its improve¬ 
ments. While civilization has been improving our 
houses, it has not equally improved the men who are 
to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was 
not so easy to create noblemen and kings. And if 
the civilized man!s pursuits are no worthier than the 
savage’s, if he is employed the greater part of his life 
in obtaining gross necessaries and comforts merely y 
why should he have a better dwelling than the 
former? 

3. But how do the poor minority fare? Perhaps 
it will be found that just in proportion as some have 
been placed in outward circumstances above the sav¬ 
age, others have been degraded below him. The 
luxury of one class is counterbalanced by the in¬ 
digence of another. On the one side is the palace, 
on the other are the almshouse and “silent poor.” 
The myriads who built the pyramids to be the tombs 
of the Pharaohs were fed on garlic, and it may be 
were not decently buried themselves. The mason 
who finishes the cornice of the palace returns at night 
perchance to a hut not so good as a wigwam. It is 
a mistake to suppose that, in a country where the 
usual evidences of civilization exist, the condition of 
a very large body of the inhabitants may not be as 
degraded as that of savages. I refer to the de¬ 
graded poor, not now to the degraded rich. To 
know this I should not need to look farther than 
to the shanties which everywhere border our rail- 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


200 READING AND THINKING 

roads, that last improvement in civilization; where 
I see in my daily walks human beings living in sties, 
and all winter with an open door, for the sake of 
light, without any visible, often imaginable, wood- 
50 pile, and the forms of both old and young are perma¬ 
nently contracted by the long habit of shrinking from 
cold and misery, and the development of all their 
limbs and faculties is checked. It certainly is fair 
to look at that class by whose labor the works which 
55 distinguish this generation are accomplished. Such, 
too, to a greater or less extent, is the condition of the 
operatives of every denomination in England, which 
is the great workhouse of the world. Or I could 
refer you to Ireland, which is marked as one of the 
60 white or enlightened spots on the map. Contrast 
the physical condition of the Irish with that of the 
North American Indian, or the South Sea Islander, 
or any other savage race before it was degraded by 
contact with the civilized man. Yet I have no doubt 
65 that that people’s rulers are as wise as the average of 
civilized rulers. Their condition only proves what 
squalidness may consist with civilization. I hardly 
need refer now to the laborers in our Southern States 
who produce the staple exports of this country, and 
70 are themselves a staple production of the South. 
But to confine myself to those who are said to be in 
moderate circumstances. 

4. Most men appear never to have considered 
what a house is, and are actually though needlessly 
75 poor all their lives because they think that they must 
have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one 
were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might 
cut out for him, or, gradually leaving off palm-leaf 
hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times 


HENRY DAVID THOREAU 201 

because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It 
is possible to invent a house still more convenient 
and luxurious than we have, which yet all would ad¬ 
mit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we 
always study to obtain more of these things, and not 
sometimes to be content with less? Shall the re¬ 
spectable citizen thus gravely teach, by precept and 
example, the necessity of the young man’s providing 
a certain number of superfluous glow-shoes, and um¬ 
brellas, and empty guest chambers for empty guests, 
before he dies? Why should not our furniture be as 
simple as the Arab’s or the Indian’s? When I think 
of the benefactors of the race, whom we have 
apotheosized as messengers from heaven, bearers of 
divine gifts to man, I do not see in my mind any 
retinue at their heels, any carload of fashionable fur¬ 
niture. Or what if I were to allow—would it not 
be a singular allowance?—that our furniture should 
be more complex than the Arab’s, in proportion as 
we are morally and intellectually his superiors! At 
present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, 
and a good housewife would sweep out the greater 
part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning’s 
work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of 
Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be 
man’s morning work in this world? I had three 
pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to 
find that they required to be dusted daily, when the 
furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and I 
threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, 
could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit 
in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, un¬ 
less where man has broken ground. 

5. It is the luxurious and dissipated who set the 


80 

85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 


202 


READING AND THINKING 


fashions which the herd so diligently follow. The 
ns traveler who stops at the best houses, so called, soon 
discovers this, for the publicans presume him to be a 
Sardanapalus, and if he resigned himself to their 
tender mercies he would soon be completely emascu¬ 
lated. I think that in the railroad car we are in- 
120 dined to spend more on luxury than on safety and 
convenience, and it threatens without attaining these 
to become no better than a modern drawing-room, 
with its divans, and ottomans, and sunshades, and 
a hundred other oriental things, which we are taking 
125 west with us, invented for the ladies of the harem 
and the effeminate natives of the Celestial Empire, 
which Jonathan should be ashamed to know the 
names of. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and 
have it all to myself than be crowned on a velvet 
130 cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an oxcart, 
with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy 
car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all 
the way. 

6 . The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s 
135 life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at 
least, that they left him still but a sojourner in na¬ 
ture. When he was refreshed with food and sleep, 
he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it 
were, in a tent in this world, and was either thread- 
140 ing the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the 
mountain-tops. But lo! men have become the tools 
of their tools. The man who independently plucked 
the fruits when he was hungry is become a farmer; 
and he who stood under a tree for shelter, a house- 
145 keeper. We now no longer camp as for a night, but 
have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. 
We have adopted Christianity merely as an im- 


HENRY DAVID THOREAU 


203 


proved method of tf^W-culture. We have built for 
this world a family mansion, and for the next a 
family tomb. The best works of art are the expres- iso 
sion of man’s struggle to free himself from this con¬ 
dition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this 
low state comfortable and that higher state to be 
forgotten. There is actually no place in this village 
for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, 155 
to stand, for our lives, our houses and streets, fur¬ 
nish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail 
to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust 
of a hero or a saint. When I consider how our 
houses are built and paid for, or not paid for, andi 6 o 
their internal economy managed and sustained, I 
wonder that the floor does not give way under the 
visitor while he is admiring the gewgaws upon the 
mantelpiece, and let him through into the cellar, to 
some solid and honest though earthy foundation. 1165 
cannot but perceive that this so-called rich and re¬ 
fined life is a thing jumped at, and I do not get on 
in the enjoyment of the fine arts which adorn it, my 
attention being wholly occupied with the jump; for 
I remember that the greatest genuine leap, due to no 
human muscles alone, on record, is that of certain 
wandering Arabs, who are said to have cleared 
twenty-five feet on level ground. Without facti¬ 
tious support, man is sure to come to earth again be¬ 
yond that distance. The first question which I am 175 
tempted to put to the proprietor of such great im¬ 
propriety is, Who bolsters you? Are you one of 
the ninety-seven who fail, or the three who succeed? 
Answer me these questions, and then perhaps I may 
look at your baubles and find them ornamental, iso 
The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor 


204 


READING AND THINKING 


useful. Before we can adorn our houses with beau¬ 
tiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives 
must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and 
185beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste 
for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, 
where there is no house and no housekeeper. 


WORDS 

1. Thoreau refers to the following characters in history 
and literature: “Momus” ( 1 . 4), “Minerva” ( 1 . 5), “Pha¬ 
raohs” ( 1 . 35), “Aurora” ( 1 . 104), “Memnon” ( 1 . 104), 
“Sardanapalus” ( 1 . 117), “Jonathan” ( 1 . 127). He as¬ 
sumes that his reader is acquainted with them. How far 
short of a full understanding of the author’s thought and 
feeling is that reader who lacks such familiarity? 

2. Discuss the connotation to the Western reader of 
“divans,” “ottomans,” “oriental,” “harem,” and “Celestial 
Empire” ( 11 . 123-126). Note the word “emasculated” 
(1. 118). 

3. The words “gewgaws” ( 1 . 163) and “baubles” ( 1 . 180) 
are synonyms. Is there a difference of suggestiveness? Note 
their origins. 

4. What period of time is indicated by the word “genera¬ 
tion” ( 1 . 12)? What are its other meanings? 

5. “Precept” ( 1 . 86) and “example” ( 1 . 87) often travel 
together. Why? 

6. What is the etymology of “malaria” ( 1 . 132)? How 
has modern medical science made it strictly a misnomer of 
the disease which it identifies? Consider other words which 
begin with mal. 

7. What is the meaning in this selection of “scurvy” 
(1. 10), “gross” (1. 24), “degraded” (1. 30), “indigence” 
(11. 31-32), “myriads” (1. 34), “cornice” (1. 37), “sties” 
(1. 47), “faculties” (1. 53), “operatives” (1. 57), “denomina- 


HENRY DAVID THOREAU 


205 


tion” (1. 57), “squalidness” (1. 67), “consist” (1. 67), 
“staple” (1. 69), “superfluous” (1. 88), “benefactors” (1. 92), 
“apotheosized” (1. 93), “retinue” (1. 95), “morally” (1. 99), 
“intellectually” (1. 99), “defiled” (1. 100), “luxurious” 
(1. 113), “dissipated” (1. 113), “diligently” (1. 114), “pub¬ 
licans” (1. 116), “sojourner” (1. 136), “agriculture” (1. 148), 
“pedestal” (1. 157), “economy” (1. 161), “factitious” 
(11. 173-174)? 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Explain the phrase “our own scurvy selves” ( 1 . 10). 
On the basis of the explanation, interpret or suggest a sym¬ 
bolical meaning for the succeeding sentence. 

2. Should the interpretation arrived at in question 1 be 
extended to include the question “What should be man’s 
morning work in this world?” (11. 104—105). 

(a) Would you extend the interpretation to include all 
of the fourth paragraph? 

(b) Do you think Thoreau intended you to interpret in 
some such way the entire extract? (Remember that 
nothing of significance is likely to get into a piece of 
writing except by the author’s specific intention.) 

3. If your answer to 2 (b) is affirmative, state concisely 
Thoreau’s thesis in this extract. 

4. Why is the last sentence of the second paragraph 
italicized ? 

5. Write a list of the topics of the six paragraphs, ex¬ 
pressing them simply in your own words. 

6. What is the relationship between the second and the 
fourth paragraph? Note especially the first sentence in the 
second paragraph, and the last in the third. 

7. Are the transitions between paragraphs in this selection 
expressed or implied ? Are the transitions smooth ? 

8. Sentences 2 to 8 in the third paragraph present a series 


206 


READING AND THINKING 


of contrasts. What is the effect of the repetition? Which 
sentence summarizes the idea illustrated in the others? 

9. Comment on the effect of the use of rhetorical ques¬ 
tions in the fourth paragraph. 

10. Are Thoreau’s references in the third paragraph to the 
American Indian and the South Sea Islanders sentimen¬ 
talized ? 

11. Walden was published in 1854. What comments 
would a modern editor make about the allusions, in the third 
paragraph, to Ireland and “our Southern States’’? 

12. Suggest some names which Thoreau may have had in 
mind as “messengers from heaven, bearers of divine gifts to 
man” (11. 93-94)• 

13. “But lo! men have become the tools of their tools” 

( 11 . 141-142). This statement is illustrated by (a) -, 

(b) -, and ( c )-. Fill in the blanks. Show that you 

fully understand illustration (c). 

14. “This low state comfortable and that higher state to 
be forgotten” ( 11 . 152-154). What is the “low state” and 
what the “higher state”? 

15. “The man who independently plucked the fruits when 
he was hungry is become a farmer; and he who stood under a 
tree for shelter, a housekeeper” (11. 142-145). 

(a) Which of these attitudes is Thoreau defending? 

(b) Explain how the sentence illustrates the thesis which 
runs throughout the extract. 

(c) Discuss the sentence in the light of Eastman’s dis¬ 
tinction (see p. 30) between poetic and practical 
people. 





GEORGE SANTAYANA 


George Santayana (1863— ) was born in Madrid of 

Spanish parents but was educated in America, at Harvard. 
After further study in Europe he became a teacher of philoso¬ 
phy at Harvard and continued there until 1911, when, upon 
inheriting a fortune, he retired immediately to live in Europe. 
His studies in philosophy, particularly aesthetics, beginning 
with The Sense of Beauty, have been widely read and ad¬ 
mired. He has lectured at Cambridge and Oxford, England, 
and at the Sorbonne. His novel, The Last Puritan, was a 
considerable success. The following extract is from one of 
his essays.* 


1. To most people, I fancy, the stars are beauti¬ 

ful; but if you asked why, they would be at a loss to 
reply, until they remembered what they had heard 
about astronomy, and the great size and distance and 
possible habitation of those orbs. The vague and 5 
illusive ideas thus aroused fall in so well with the 
dumb emotion we were already feeling, that we 
attribute this emotion to those ideas, and persuade 
ourselves that the power of the starry heavens lies in 
the suggestion of astronomical facts. 10 

2. The idea of the insignificance of our earth and 
of the incomprehensible multiplicity of worlds is in¬ 
deed immensely impressive; it may even be intensely 
disagreeable. There is something baffling about in¬ 
finity; in its presence the sense of finite humility can 15 


♦Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. 




208 READING AND THINKING 

never wholly banish the rebellious suspicion that we 
are being deluded. Our mathematical imagination 
is put on the rack by an attempted conception that 
has all the anguish of a nightmare and probably, 
20 could we but awake, all its laughable absurdity. But 
the obsession of this dream is an intellectual puzzle, 
not an aesthetic delight. Before the days of Kepler 
the heavens declared the glory of the Lord; and we 
needed no calculation of stellar distances, no fancies 
25 about a plurality of worlds, no image of infinite 
spaces, to make the stars sublime. 

3. Had we been taught to believe that the stars 
governed our fortunes, and were we reminded of 
fate whenever we looked at them, we should similarly 
30 tend to imagine that this belief was the source of 
their sublimity; and if the superstition were dis¬ 
pelled, we should think the interest gone from the 
apparition. But experience would soon undeceive 
us, and prove that the sensuous character of the ob- 
35ject was sublime in itself. For that reason the par¬ 
able of the natal stars governing our lives is such a 
natural one to express our subjection to circum¬ 
stances, and can be transformed by the stupidity of 
disciples into a literal tenet. In the same way, the 
40 kinship of the emotion produced by the stars with 
the emotion proper to certain religious moments 
makes the stars seem a religious object. They be¬ 
come, like impressive music, a stimulus to worship. 
But fortunately there are experiences which remain 
45 untouched by theory, and which maintain the mutual 
intelligence of men through the estrangements 
wrought by intellectual and religious systems. 
When the superstructures crumble, the common foun¬ 
dation of human sentience and imagination is ex- 


GEORGE SANTAYANA 


209 


posed beneath. Did not the infinite, by this initial 
assault upon our senses, awe us and overwhelm us, 
as solemn music might, the idea of it would be 
abstract and mental like that of the infinitesimal, 
and nothing but an amusing curiosity. The knowl¬ 
edge that the universe is a multitude of minute 
spheres circling, like specks of dust, in a dark and 
boundless void, might leave us cold and indifferent, 
if not bored and depressed, were it not that we iden¬ 
tify this hypothetical scheme with the visible splen¬ 
dor, the poignant intensity, and the baffling number 
of the stars. So far is the object from giving value 
to the impression, that it is here, as it must always 
ultimately be, the impression that gives value to the 
object. For all worth leads us back to actual feel¬ 
ing somewhere, or else evaporates into nothing— 
into a word and a superstition. 

4. Now, the starry heavens are very happily 
designed to intensify the sensations on which their 
fascination must rest. The continuum of space is 
broken into points, numerous enough to give the ut¬ 
most idea of multiplicity, and yet so distinct and 
vivid that it is impossible not to remain aware of 
their individuality. The sensuous contrast of the 
dark background—blacker the clearer the night and 
the more stars we can see—with the palpitating fire 
of the stars themselves, could not be exceeded by 
any possible device. 

5. Fancy a map of the heavens and every star 
plotted upon it, even those invisible to the naked eye: 
why would this object, as full of scientific suggestion 
surely as the reality, leave us so comparatively cold? 
The sense of multiplicity is naturally in no way 
diminished by the representation; but the poignancy 


50 

55 

60 

65 

70 

75 

80 


210 


READING AND THINKING 


of the sensation, the life of the light, are gone; and 
85 with the dulled impression the keenness of the emo¬ 
tion disappears. Or imagine the stars, undimin¬ 
ished in number, without losing any of their astro¬ 
nomical significance and divine immutability, mar¬ 
shalled in geometrical patterns; say in a Latin cross, 
90 with the words In hoc signo vinces in a scroll around 
them. The beauty of the illumination would be 
perhaps increased, and its import, practical, religious, 
and cosmic, would surely be a little plainer; but 
where would be the sublimity of the spectacle? Ir- 
95 retrievably lost: and lost because the form of the 
object would no longer tantalize us with its sheer 
multiplicity, and with the consequent overpowering 
sense of suspense and awe. Accordingly, things 
which have enough multiplicity, as the lights of a city 
ioo seen across water, have an effect similar to that of 
the stars, if less intense; whereas a star, if alone, be¬ 
cause the multiplicity is lacking, makes a wholly dif¬ 
ferent impression. The single star is tender, beau¬ 
tiful, and mild; we can compare it to the humblest 
105 and sweetest of things : 

A violet by a mossy stone 
Half hidden from the eye, 

Fair as a star ivhen only one 
Is shining in the sky. 

no 6. It is, not only in fact but in nature, an attend¬ 
ant on the moon, associated with the moon, if we 
may be so prosaic here, not only by contiguity but 
also by similarity. 

Fairer than Phoebe’s sapphire-regioned star 
115 Or vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky. 


GEORGE SANTAYANA 


211 


7. The same poet can say elsewhere of a passion¬ 
ate lover: 


He arose 

Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star, 

Amid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose. 120 


8. How opposite is all this from the cold glitter, 
the cruel and mysterious sublimity of the stars when 
they are many! With these we have no tender asso¬ 
ciations; they make us think rather of Kant who 
could hit on nothing else to compare with his cate- 125 
gorical imperative, perhaps because he found in both 
the same baffling incomprehensibility and the same 
fierce actuality. Such ultimate feelings are sensa¬ 
tions of physical tension. 


WORDS 

1. Such words as the following may be called technical 
terms in the discourse of a philosopher; be sure that you know 
the meaning of each as used in the excerpt: “infinity” (11. 14- 
15), “conception” (1. 18), “stimulus” (1. 43), “sentience” 
(1. 49), “imagination” (1. 49), “hypothetical” (1. 59), “con¬ 
tinuum” (1. 69), “import” (1. 92), “cosmic” (1. 93). 

2. Define also, as used here, “orbs” ( 1 . 5), “illusive” 
(1. 6), “obsession” (1. 21), “aesthetic” (1. 22), “sublimity” 
(1. 31), “religious” (1. 41), “awe” (1. 51), “poignant” 
(1. 60), “palpitating” (1. 75), “immutability” (1. 88), 
“sheer” (1. 96), “contiguity” (1. 112), “tension” (1. 129). 

3. “Stars” ( 1 . 1), “astronomical” ( 1 . 10), and “stellar” 
( 1 . 24) are derived from the three chief sources of English 
words. What are they? 

4. “Put on the rack” ( 1 . 18) is a figurative expression. 
Explain. 

5. Define “infinity” ( 11 . 14-15), “finite” ( 1 . 15), and “in¬ 
finitesimal” ( 1 . 53). Compare “finish” and “define.” 


212 


READING AND THINKING 


6. List other words formed on the root of “natal” ( 1 . 36). 

7. What is the relationship of the meaning of “disciples” 
(1. 39) to the various meanings of “discipline”? 

8. Define “literal” ( 1 . 39). Compare the colloquial ex¬ 
pression “He knows his subject to the letter.” 

9. Define “tenet” ( 1 . 39). List other words derived from 
the Latin word meaning “to hold.” 

10. What is the meaning of “categorical imperative” 
( 11 . 125-126) ? How is the meaning derived from the mean¬ 
ings of the two words? 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. Outline the excerpt by filling in the blanks in the follow¬ 
ing statement with concise but comprehensive phrases: The 

stars-, not because-, nor because-. Collectively 

they-; a single star-. 

2. What are the “illusive ideas thus aroused” ( 1 . 6) ? 
Why are they illusive? 

3. What phrase best states the subject of the second para¬ 
graph ? 

4. “But the obsession of this dream is an intellectual 
puzzle, not an aesthetic delight” ( 11 . 20-22). Restate the 
sentence in your own words. Justify the use in it of the 
conjunction “but” (1. 20). 

5. The phrase “aesthetic delight” ( 1 . 22) harks back to a 
sentence in the first paragraph. Point it out. 

6. Who was Kepler ( 1 . 22) ? Explain the meaning of the 
sentence in which his name appears. 

7. To what does “similarly” ( 1 . 29) refer? 

8. Explain why astrology is called a “parable” ( 11 . 35-36). 

9. Can you mention other situations in which the “stupidity 
of disciples” (11. 38-39) has distorted or defeated original 
meaning or intention? 

10. What parallel does Santayana draw between the stars 
and “impressive music” (1. 43), and “solemn music” (1. 52) ? 







GEORGE SANTAYANA 


213 


11. Point out the sentence in the third paragraph which 
illustrates direct antithesis. What does it mean? 

12. In what ways are the heavens “happily designed to 
intensify the sensations” (11. 67-68)? 

13. What is the meaning of “In hoc signo vinces” ( 1 . 90) ? 
Why is its use as an illustration here especially appropriate? 

14. What contrast is pointed by the discussion of “the 
single star” (1. 103) ? 

15. Why are the poetical quotations introduced? 

16. Show how the return to the thought of the last para¬ 
graph tends to give the passage unity. 

17. Who was Kant ( 1 . 124)? Explain the allusion to 
him. 

18. Restate in your own words, if you can, the thought 
of the last sentence. 


SUGGESTED WORK 

With the aid of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations locate the 
source of the three poetical quotations. 


JOHN STUART MILL 


John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) was the son of a well- 
known Scotch-English historian and political theorist. By 
his father he was subjected to a remarkable experiment in 
home education which made him an intellectual prodigy and 
an emotionally starved young man. His life was made se¬ 
cure by a position in the London office of The India Com¬ 
pany, and he had much time to devote to journalism, discus¬ 
sion, and study, and the writing of books in political science 
and philosophy. As a kind of summation of his intellectual 
career he wrote a long essay, On Liberty, from which the fol¬ 
lowing is taken. The essay has profoundly influenced mod¬ 
ern democracy. 


i. The object of this essay is to assert one very 
simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the 
dealings of society with the individual in the way of 
compulsion and control, whether the means used be 
5 physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the 
moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, 
that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, 
individually or collectively, in interfering with the 
liberty of action of any of their number, is self- 
10 protection. That the only purpose for which power 
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a 
civilized community, against his will, is to prevent 
harm to others. His own good, either physical or 
moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot right- 
15 fully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be 


214 



JOHN STUART MILL 215 

better for him to do so, because it will make him hap¬ 
pier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so 
would be wise, or even right. These are good rea¬ 
sons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with 
him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not 
for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in 
case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct 
from which it is desired to deter him must be calcu¬ 
lated to produce evil to some one else. The only 
part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amena¬ 
ble to society, is that which concerns others. In the 
part which merely concerns himself, his independ¬ 
ence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his 
own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. 

2. It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this 
doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in 
the maturity of their faculties. We are not speak¬ 
ing of children, or of young persons below the age 
which the law may fix as that of manhood or woman¬ 
hood. Those who are still in a state to require 
being taken care of by others, must be protected 
against their own actions as well as against external 
injury. For the same reason, we may leave out of 
consideration those backward states of society in 
which the race itself may be considered as in its 
nonage. The early difficulties in the way of spon¬ 
taneous progress are so great, that there is seldom 
any choice of means for overcoming them; and a 
ruler full of the spirit of improvement is warranted 
in the use of any expedients that will attain an end, 
perhaps otherwise unattainable. Despotism is a 
legitimate mode of government in dealing with bar¬ 
barians, provided the end be their improvement, and 
the means justified by actually effecting that end. 


20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


216 


READING AND THINKING 


50Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any 
state of things anterior to the time when mankind 
have become capable of being improved by free and 
equal discussion. Until then, there is nothing for 
them but implicit obedience to an Akbar or a Charle- 
ssmagne, if they are so fortunate as to find one. But 
as soon as mankind have attained the capacity of 
being guided to their own improvement by convic¬ 
tion or persuasion (a period long since reached in all 
nations with whom we need here concern ourselves), 
60 compulsion, either in the direct form or in that of 
pains and penalties for non-compliance, is no longer 
admissible as a means to their own good, and justifi¬ 
able only for the security of others. 

3. It is proper to state that I forego any advan- 
65 tage which could be derived to my argument from 
the idea of abstract right, as a thing independent of 
utility. I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all 
ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest 
sense, grounded on the permanent interests of a man 
70 as a progressive being. Those interests, I contend, 
authorize the subjection of individual spontaneity to 
external control, only in respect to those actions of 
each, which concern the interest of other people. 
If any one does an act hurtful to others, there is a 
75 prima facie case for punishing him, by law, or, where 
legal penalties are not safely applicable, by general 
disapprobation. There are also many positive acts 
for the benefit of others, which he may rightfully be 
compelled to perform; such as to give evidence in a 
so court of justice; to bear his fair share in the common 
defense, or in any other joint work necessary to the 
interest of the society of which he enjoys the protec¬ 
tion; and to perform certain acts of individual 


JOHN STUART MILL 217 

beneficence, such as saving a fellow-creature’s life, or 
interposing to protect the defenseless against ill- 
usage, things which, whenever it is obviously a man’s 
duty to do, he may rightfully be made responsible to 
society for not doing. A person may cause evil to 
others not only by his actions but by his inaction, 
and in either case he is justly accountable to them 
for the injury. The latter case, it is true, requires 
a much more cautious exercise of compulsion than 
the former. To make any one answerable for doing 
evil to others is the rule; to make him answerable 
for not preventing evil is, comparatively speaking, 
the exception. Yet there are many cases clear 
enough and grave enough to justify that exception. 
In all things which regard the external relations of 
the individual, he is de jure amenable to those whose 
interests are concerned, and, if need be, to society as 
their protector. There are often good reasons for 
not holding him to the responsibility; but these rea¬ 
sons must arise from the special expediencies of the 
case: either because it is a kind of case in which he is 
on the whole likely to act better, when left to his own 
discretion, than when controlled in any way in which 
society have it in their power to control him; or be¬ 
cause the attempt to exercise control would produce 
other evils, greater than those which it would pre¬ 
vent. When such reasons as these preclude the 
enforcement of responsibility, the conscience of the 
agent himself should step into the vacant judgment 
seat, and protect those interests of others which have 
no external protection; judging himself all the more 
rigidly, because the case does not admit of his being 
made accountable to the judgment of his fellow- 
creatures. 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 

115 


218 READING AND THINKING 

4. But there is a sphere of action in which society, 
as distinguished from the individual, has, if any, only 
120 an indirect interest; comprehending all that portion 
of a person’s life and conduct which affects only him¬ 
self, or if it also affects others, only with their free, 
voluntary, and undeceived consent and participation. 
When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the 
125 first instance; for whatever affects himself, may affect 
others through himself; and the objection which may 
be grounded on this contingency will receive consid¬ 
eration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate 
region of. human liberty. It comprises, first, the 
130 inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty 
of conscience in the most comprehensive sense; lib¬ 
erty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of 
opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or 
speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The 
135 liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may 
seem to fall under a different principle, since it be¬ 
longs to that part of the conduct of an individual 
which concerns other people; but, being almost of as 
much importance as the liberty of thought itself, and 
ho resting in great part on the same reasons, is practi¬ 
cally inseparable from it. Secondly, the principle 
requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing 
the plan of our life to suit our own character; of do¬ 
ing as we like, subject to such consequences as may 
145 follow: without impediment from our fellow crea¬ 
tures, so long as what we do does not harm them, 
even though they should think our conduct foolish, 
perverse, or wrong. Thirdly, from this liberty of 
each individual, follows the liberty, within the same 
150 limits, of combination among individuals; freedom 
to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to 


JOHN STUART MILL 219 

others: the persons combining being supposed to be 
of full age, and not forced or deceived. 

5. No society in which these liberties are not, on 
the whole, respected, is free, whatever may be its 155 
form of government; and none is completely free in 
which they do not exist absolute and unqualified. 
The only freedom which deserves the name, is that 
of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long 
as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or 160 
impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper 
guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or men¬ 
tal and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by 
suffering each other to live as seems good to them¬ 
selves, than by compelling each to live as seems good 165 
to the rest. 


WORDS 

1. The following words are used in series: “remon¬ 
strating, M “reasoning,” “persuading,” “entreating” (11. 19- 
20). Distinguish carefully their meanings. Is there signifi¬ 
cance in the order in which they are used ? 

2. In the light of the first question discuss the meaning and 
order of “foolish, perverse, or wrong” (11. 147-148). 

3. Compare the connotations of “physical force” ( 1 . 5) and 
“moral coercion” (1. 6). 

4. Look up the meanings of the Latin tags “de jure” 
( 1 . 99) and “prima facie * ( 1 . 75). What Latin phrase is 
often used antithetically to "de jure"? 

5. Define “comprehending” ( 1 . 120) and “comprehensive” 
(1. ISO as they appear in the passage. 

6. The word case is used six times in the third paragraph. 
Look up its meaning. (It is frequently misused.) Compare 
question 2 in WORDS (p. 189) under the selection from 
Mrs. Wharton. 


220 


READING AND THINKING 


7. Investigate thoroughly the meaning of “utility” as used 
here; for example, in line 67. Look up also “utilitarianism.” 

8. Define, as used in this discussion, “compulsion” ( 1 . 4), 
“exercised” (1. 11), “warrant” (1. 14), “forbear” (1. 15), 
“visiting” (1. 21), “amenable” (1. 25), “absolute” (1. 28), 
“maturity” (1. 32), “faculties” (1. 32), “nonage” (1. 41), 
“expedients” (1. 45), “despotism” (1. 46), “anterior” (1. 51), 
“implicit” (1. 54), “non-compliance” (1. 61), “ultimate” 
(1. 67), “disapprobation” (1. 77), “beneficence” (1. 84), 
“discretion” (1. 106), “preclude” (1. no), “contingency” 
(1. 127), “sequel” (1. 128), “domain” (1. 130), “speculative” 
(1. 134), “publishing” (1. 135), “impediment” (1. 145), 
“perverse” (1. 148), “unqualified” (1. 157). 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. What is the key phrase of the first paragraph? 

2. How many sentences in the first paragraph restate the 
principle of the key phrase directly? How many conversely? 

3. What sentence in the first paragraph is fragmentary? 

4. What possible objections to the principle of the first 
paragraph are forestalled in the second paragraph? 

5. Comment on the device of argumentation or exposition 
pointed out by the previous question. 

6. What sentence in the second paragraph expresses its 
idea in concrete terms? 

7. What persons may be justly subjected to despotism? 
Is Mill convincing at this point? 

8. What does Mill mean by “capable of being improved by 
free and equal discussion” (11. 52-53) ? 

9. Over what two kinds of acts may society legitimately 
exercise control? 

10. What is meant by the phrase “abstract right” ( 1 . 66) ? 

11. “I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical 
questions” ( 11 . 67-68). Consider carefully the implications 
of this statement. Is Mill consistent in holding to this point? 
Note how he qualifies the statement. 


JOHN STUART MILL 221 

12. Explain the meaning of “the conscience of the agent 
himself should step into the vacant judgment seat” (11. 111— 
113). Can you illustrate by a specific example? 

13. Point out a sentence in the third paragraph which 
illustrates antithesis and balance. Explain its meaning. 

14. Back to what sentence in the first paragraph does the 
first sentence in the fourth paragraph take us? 

15. The “appropriate region of human liberty” ( 11 . 128— 

129) comprises (a) -, ( b )-, (c)-. Fill in the 

blanks. 

16. What does Mill say about the freedom of the press? 

17. What does Mill say which pertains to the right of 
laborers to form unions? 

18. What similes or metaphors does Mill employ in the 
extract ? 

19. Summarize the last paragraph in not more than twenty- 
five words. 

20. Write a paragraph beginning with one of the following 
sentences: 

(a) The welfare of society demands that inferior peoples, 
for their own good, be governed by superior peoples. 

(b) The theory that inferior peoples should be governed, 
for their own good, by others is a rationalization of 
selfish desires for power. 

21. Define laissez faire. How is the principle related to 
Mill’s doctrine? 





JOSIAH ROYCE 


Josiah Royce (1855-1916) was born in Grass Valley, 
Nevada, of English parents who had emigrated to Califor¬ 
nia during the gold rush. He was educated by his mother, 
at school in San Francisco, and at the University of Cali¬ 
fornia. After a period of study in Europe, he became one 
of the first fellows of the then new Johns Hopkins Univer¬ 
sity. His work there and as an instructor at California at¬ 
tracted William James, who brought him to Harvard in 
1882. He taught there the rest of his life, one of the bril¬ 
liant group which included Santayana. He became widely 
known as teacher, lecturer, and writer. The following ex¬ 
tract is from one of his series of lectures, The Spirit of Mod¬ 
ern Philosophy .* 


i. Some people have a fashion of recording their 
reflective moments just as they happen to come. If 
such persons chance to be poets, the form of the 
record is often the thoughtful lyric. And the 
5 thoughtful lyric poem usually possesses the very 
quality which made Aristotle call poetry a “more 
philosophical” portrayal of human life than history. 
It is indeed marvelous how metaphysical a great 
poem of passion almost always is. The passion of 
10 the moment makes its own universe, flashes back like 
a jewel the light of the far-off sun of truth, but colors 
this reflected light with its own mysterious glow. 
“You are, you shall be mine,” cries the strong emo- 

*This selection from Josiah Royce is used by permission of, and 
by arrangement with the publishers, Houghton Mifflin Company. 

222 


» 




JOSIAH ROYCE 223 

tion to the earth and to the whole choir of heaven, 
and the briefest poem may contain a sort of philo¬ 
sophic scheme of the entire creation. The scheme is 
sometimes as false as the passion portrayed is tran¬ 
sient; but it is also often as true as the passion is 
deep, and whoever has once seen how variously and 
yet how significantly the moods expressed in great 
poems interpret both our life and the reality of which 
our life forms part, will not be likely to find that 
philosophical systems are vain merely because the 
philosophers, like the poets, differ. In fact, the rea¬ 
son why there is as yet no one final philosophy may 
be very closely allied to the reason why there is no 
final and complete poem. Life is, throughout, a 
complicated thing; the truth of the spirit remains an 
inexhaustible treasure house of experience; and hence 
no individual experience, whether it be the momen¬ 
tary insight of genius recorded in the lyric poem, or 
the patient accumulation of years of professional 
plodding through the problems of philosophy, will 
ever fully tell all the secrets which life has to reveal. 

2. It is for just this reason, so I now suggest, that 
when you study philosophy, you have to be tolerant, 
receptive, willing to look at the world from many 
sides, fearless as to the examination of what seem to 
be even dangerous doctrines, patient in listening to 
views that look even abhorrent to common sense. 
It is useless to expect a simple and easy account of 
so paradoxical an affair as this our universe and our 
life. When you first look into philosophy you are 
puzzled and perhaps frightened by those manifold 
opinions of the philosophers of which we have thus 
far had so much to say. “If they, who have thought 
so deeply, differ so much,” you say, “then what hope 


15 

20 

25 

30 

35 

40 

45 


224 


READING AND THINKING 


is there that the truth can ever be known?” But if 
you examine further you find that this variety, better 
50 studied, is on its more human side largely an expres¬ 
sion of the liveliness and individuality of the spiritual 
temperaments of strong men. The truth is not in 
this case “in the middle.” The truth is rather “the 
whole.” Let me speak at once in the terminology 
55 of a special philosophical doctrine, and say that the 
world spirit chose these men as his voices,—these 
men and others like them, and that in fact he did so 
because he had all these things to voice. Pardon 
this fashion of speech; I shall try to make it clearer 
60 hereafter. Their experience then, let me say, is, in 
its apparently confusing variety, not so much a seeing 
of one dead reality from many places, but rather a 
critical re-wording of fragments of the one life 
which it is the destiny of man to possess and to com- 
65 prehend. These warring musicians strike mutually 
discordant tones. But let each sing his song by 
himself, and the whole group of Meistersanger shall 
discourse to you most excellent music. For grant 
that the philosophers are all in fact expressing not 
70 dead truth, but the essence of human life, then be¬ 
cause this life is many-sided, the individual expres¬ 
sions cannot perfectly agree. It is the union of 
many such insights that will be the one true view of 
life. Or again, using the bolder phrases, let us say 
75 that all these thinkers are trying to comprehend a 
little of the life of the one World Spirit who lives 
and moves in all things. Then surely this life, which 
in our world needs both the antelopes and the tigers 
to embody its endless vigor, that life which the frost 
so and cold, the ice and snow, do bless and magnify, is 
not a life which any one experience can exhaust. All 


JOSIAH ROYCE 225 

the philosophers are needed, not merely to make 
jarring assertions about it, but to give us embodi¬ 
ments now of this, now of that fragment of its wealth 
and its eternity. And in saying this I don’t counsel 
you in your study of philosophy merely to jumble 
together all sorts of sayings of this thinker and of 
that, and then to declare, as makers of eclectic essays 
and of books of extracts love to say, “This is all 
somehow great and true.” What I mean is that, 
apart from the private whims and the nonessential 
accidents of each great philosopher, his doctrine 
will contain for the critical student an element of 
permanent truth about life, a truth which in its isola¬ 
tion may indeed contradict the view of his equally 
worthy co-workers, but which, in union, in synthesis, 
in vital connection with its very bitterest opposing 
doctrines, may turn out to be an organic portion of 
the genuine treasure of humanity. Nobody hates 
more than I do mere eclecticism, mere piecing to¬ 
gether of this fragment and that for the bare love of 
producing fraudulent monuments of philosophic art. 
But the fact is that, frauds aside, the god-like form 
of truth exists for us men, as it were, in statuesque 
but scattered remnants of the once perfect marble. 
Through the whole ruined world, made desolate by 
the Turks of prejudice and delusion, the philoso¬ 
phers wander, finding here and there one of these 
bits of the eternal and genuine form of the goddess. 
Though I hate fraudulent restorations of a divine 
antiquity, still I know that, notwithstanding all, 
these fragments do somehow belong together, and 
that the real truth is no one of the bits, but is the 
whole goddess. What we who love philosophy long 
for is no piecework, but that matchless whole itself. 


85 

90 

95 

100 

105 

110 

115 


226 READING AND THINKING 

3. The kind of philosophical breadth of view for 
which I am now pleading is not, I assure you, the 
same as mere vagueness, merely lazy toleration, of 
all sorts of conflicting opinions. Nobody is more 
120 aware than I am that the errors and false theories of 
the philosophers are facts as real as are the manifold 
expressions which they give to truth. I am not 
pleading for inexactness or undecisiveness of 
thought. What I am really pleading for, as you will 
125 see in the sequel, is a form of philosophic reflection 
that leads to a very definite and positive theory of 
the universe itself, the theory, namely, which I have 
just suggested, a theory not at all mystical in its 
methods, nor yet, in its results, really opposed to the 
130 postulates of science, or to the deeper meaning at 
the heart of common sense. This theory is that the 
whole universe, including the physical world also, is 
essentially one live thing, a mind, one great Spirit, 
infinitely wealthier in his experiences than we are, but 
135 for that very reason to be comprehended by us only 
in terms of our own wealthiest experience. I don’t 
assume the existence of such a life in the universe be¬ 
cause I want to be vague or to seem imaginative. 
The whole matter appears to me, as you will here¬ 
inafter see, to be one of exact thought. The result, 
whatever it shall be, must be reached in strict accord 
with the actual facts of experience and the actual as¬ 
sumptions of human science. The truth, whenever 
we get it, must be as hard and fast as it is manifold. 
145 But the point is that if the universe is a live thing, a 
spiritual reality, we, in progressing towards a com¬ 
prehension of its nature, must needs first compre¬ 
hend our own life. And in doing this we shall pass 
through all sorts of conflicting moods, theories, doc- 


JOSIAH ROYCE 227 

trines; and these doctrines, in the midst of their con-150 
flict and variety, will express, in fragmentary ways, 
aspects of the final doctrine, so that, as I said, the 
truth will be the whole. 

WORDS 

1. The following words are used here in special meanings 
which the philosopher attaches to them; explain each word 
on that basis: “reflective ,, (1. 2), “metaphysical” (1. 8), 
“reality” (1. 21), “doctrines” (1. 39), “critical” (1. 63), 
“essence” (1. 70), “eclectic” (1. 88), “synthesis” (1. 96), 
“eclecticism” (1. 100), “mystical” (1. 128). 

2. Explain the suffix by which “eclectic” becomes “eclecti¬ 
cism” and give other examples. (Why might an under¬ 
graduate honor society be called Eclectic?) 

3. In what sense is “passion” used in line 9? Point out 
later phrases in the paragraph which reflect the meaning. 

4. Explain the origin and present use of “terminology” 

( 1 . 54). (If you go far enough, you will get deep into 
philosophy as expressed by the phrase “the meaning of mean¬ 
ing.”) 

5. Define “paradoxical” ( 1 . 42), “manifold” ( 1 . 44), 
“organic” (1. 98), “statuesque” (1. 104), and “postulates” 

(1. 130) as used here. 

6. What is meant by the “whole choir of heaven” ( 1 . 14) ? 
Compare “choir” and “chorus.” 

7. Explain the contrast involved between “false” and 
“transient” and between “true” and “deep” in lines 17-19. 
Note especially the choice of adjectives. 

8. Explain the contrast between “momentary insight” and 
“patient accumulation” in lines 30-32. What single word 
might be used for each phrase? 

9. What ideas are conveyed by these phrases: “mutually 
discordant notes” (11. 65-66), “essence of human life” (1. 70), 
“nonessential accidents” ( 11 . 91-92), “as you will see in the 


228 


READING AND THINKING 


sequel” (11. 124-125), “assumptions of human science” 
(11. 142-143), “the final doctrine” (1. 152)? 

10. In what sense is “wealthiest” used in “wealthiest 
experience” ( 1 . 136)? Compare the phrase “treasure house 
of experience” (1. 29). 

11. Comment on “fashion” as used in lines 1 and 59. 

FORM AND CONTENT 

1. The discussion is both a consideration of the proper 
attitude toward philosophy and a preparation for the form 
of philosophy which the author is to advocate. Point out 
one sentence in the second paragraph and one in the third 
which support the statement. 

2. Consider these sentences: 

(a) “Life is, throughout, a complicated thing” ( 11 . 27-28). 

(b) “It is useless to expect a simple and easy account of so 
paradoxical an affair as this our universe and our life” 

( 11 . 41 - 43 ) ; 

(c) “All the philosophers are needed, not merely to make 
jarring assertions about it, but to give us embodiments 
now of this, now of that fragment of its wealth and 
its eternity” (11. 81-85). 

(d) “What we who love philosophy long for is no piece¬ 
work, but that matchless whole itself” (11. 114-115). 

(e) “But the point is that if the universe is a live thing, 
a spiritual reality, we, in progressing towards a com¬ 
prehension of its nature, must needs first comprehend 
our own life” (11. 145-148). 

You will find that these sentences more or less carry the 
thought of the whole selection. Explain and relate the sen¬ 
tences to the two purposes pointed out in the first question. 

3. Look up the definition of philosophy in the dictionary 
and compare it with the definition implied throughout this 
selection. Find a phrase in the second paragraph which 
expresses the definition. 


JOSIAH ROYCE 229 

4. Royce’s discussion is based on two assumptions: (1) one 
about truth; (2) the other about the universe. 

(a) Which does he label as an assumption? 

(b) Explain as well as you can what he means by each. 

(c) Point out the figures of speech used to express each 
one. 

5. What is the point of the comparison between poetry and 
philosophy in the first paragraph? Compare a similar use 
of poetry in the Greenough and Kittredge extract (see 
P- 5 ). 

6. How is the first paragraph related to the next two ? 

7. Why does Royce hate “mere eclecticism” ( 1 . 100) ? 

8. Royce says that he is not advocating “mere vagueness” 
( 1 . 118). What does he say to support the statement? 

9. Explain “Meistersanger” ( 1 . 67) and “Turks of preju¬ 
dice and delusion” (1. 107). 

10. State as well as you can Royce’s idea of the World 
Spirit. 

11. Point out evidence that this selection is from a lecture. 


SUGGESTED WORK 

1. The “World Spirit who lives and moves in all things” 
( 11 . 76-77) strongly suggests Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey. 
Read the poem and comment on it with respect to Royce’s idea. 

2. See what you can find out concerning what Goethe had 
to say about the World Spirit. 

3. Compare what is said here about the element of truth 
in each doctrine with remarks on the same idea in Greenough 
and Kittredge (see p. 6). 


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